


dryas iulia

by puertoricansuperman



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Crew as Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, mirror universe is mentioned/discussed but not visited
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27274678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puertoricansuperman/pseuds/puertoricansuperman
Summary: Moments before his death, a freak ion storm transports one Pavel Chekov out of the mirror universe and onto theUSS Enterprise.No one quite knows where to go from here, least of all Chekov himself.
Relationships: Pavel Chekov & Hikaru Sulu, Pavel Chekov & James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock & Hikaru Sulu & Nyota Uhura
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I could've sworn I once read a story where mirror!Chekov and mirror!Sulu get transported into the main 'verse somehow (and then have to adjust to not being in constant danger from everyone around them), but of course I can't find it now. This is a similar premise, only set in the AOS timeline and Chekov-centric. This fic was almost titled "through the looking glass", but since that title has already been used for multiple other mirrorverse fics _and_ at least one canon episode, I went with the pretentious biology reference instead. 
> 
> It's probably a mistake to post this right before NaNoWriMo starts, but whatever. C'est la vie.

_ “Kirk to Engineering. How’s it going down there, Scotty?” _

Scotty rubbed a hand over his face. His PADD beeped with constant updates. The engine room rumbled around him.

“Scott here,” he said into his communicator. “It’s about the same as last time, Captain.”

He turned back to Ensign Vren. “Say again?” 

“I have impulse engines at five percent, sir,” Vren said. “Just above standby.”

“Aye. Leave her there,” Scotty said. Into his communicator, he said, “It’s this damned ion storm, sir. It’s playing havoc with our wiring. I’ve tried running the impulse engines to soak up excess energy, but a magnetic storm like this is unpredictable. Very unpredictable. I can’t be certain it’ll work, and there’s no way of knowing how long the storm will be.” 

_ “So I take it beaming down to Halka II is out of the question?”  _

Scotty shuddered. “No, sir. Definitely not.” The PADD beeped again as the  _ Enterprise’s  _ core energy output spiked to nearly five thousand gigawatts per second. The spike lasted two seconds; then it dropped back to normal levels, and Scotty breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t imagine the kind of trouble we’d have trying to run the transporter in this mess. You’ll just have to wait.”

_ “Understood,”  _ Kirk said.  _ “We’ll try and get clear of the worst of the storm.” _

“Aye, sir. That ought to help,” Scotty said. “I’ll go and check on the transporter now. We’ll get you to the surface as soon as possible, Captain.”

_ “Thanks, Scotty. I know you’re doing your best. Kirk out.” _

Scotty put his communicator away and nodded at Ensign Vren. “Keep an eye on her. If you start seeing power spikes again, comm Jiang. Aye?” 

“Yes, sir,” Vren said. Scotty nodded again, and headed for the transporter room. 

He ducked underneath the water-cycle aqueduct—his eternal nemesis—where Lt. Jiang and two other engineers stood, monitoring the life-support system. He passed them by with a terse nod, and headed up the stairs that wound overhead, up to the nearest lift. 

The lift couldn’t rise fast enough, in Scotty’s opinion.  _ At least the lifts still have power.  _ He rubbed his face again. As situations on the  _ Enterprise _ went, this was far from the worst he had ever experienced, but he might be willing to call it the most frustrating. The magnetic storm had been in progress when they entered orbit about Halka II; it had set on them with almost no warning, and despite the astronomers’ best efforts, they had no way of knowing when it would end. Until it did, they could only monitor the situation and try to fix problems where they popped up.

No one had realized the seriousness of the storm until midway through gamma shift, when a massive power surge had knocked out the transporter, along with basic electrical on decks two, three, and seven. They’d managed to get power back up, but they were still playing catchup. Scotty hadn’t let anyone near the transporter since the outage. He shuddered to think what might have happened if they had been trying to  _ transport _ someone during that mess. 

The lift let him out on deck three. He lifted his communicator as he walked. “Scott to Ellis. How’s medical?” The medical bay ran on its own closed-circuit system, to prevent outages in just this sort of situation.

_ “Ellis here. Everything looks okay. We picked up two minor spikes in the last thirty minutes, but nothing the surge protectors can’t handle.”  _

“Good,” Scotty said. “Keep an eye on her. There’s no telling how long this storm will last.” 

_ “Maybe the worst is—” _

“Don’t you dare,” Scotty snapped. “We’ll cross that bridge when we bloody well come to it. You keep your eyes on those circuits.” 

He checked his PADD. A readout of the ship’s internal energy levels scrolled across the screen.  _ 1000 gigawatts. 1000… 1200… 900…  _ The display updated every second. The numbers were almost mesmerising. Scotty carried the PADD with him down the hall to the transporter room. Keenser stood at the controls, watching the display screen with apparent concentration. 

“You see anything?” Scotty asked him. Keenser grunted and made a dismissive gesture at the wires. “Aye,” Scotty said. He sat down next to him. “Well that’s just as well, then.”

His communicator chimed.  _ “Jiang to Scott. Life support is in the clear so far. The transporter seems to be getting the worst of it. Maybe it’s acting like a lightning rod? Attracting ionic energy and redirecting it?” _

“Redirecting it where?” Scotty said, partly to himself. Keenser looked up at him. “Back into space?” They hadn’t even tried to track the ionic energy surging through the ship’s wiring. They could work on that later. “It’s not building up in the ship.” A sudden burst of fear seized him. “Is it?”

_ “Not here,”  _ Jiang said. _ “Ellis?” _

_ “All clear on deck five. Kyle?”  _

_ “Same here. We had one spike in auxiliary electric, but—” _

The lights flickered.

“Shit!” Scotty bolted to his feet, white-knuckling his communicator. An alarm blared. In less than a second,  _ four terawatts  _ of power had spiked through the  _ Enterprise _ . It was off the charts. Scotty had no idea how they were still  _ alive,  _ let alone flying. 

_ “What the hell was that? Scotty?” _

_ “Mr. Scott, are you there?” _

_ “Scotty, check in!” _

“Shit, shit, shit.” Scotty tore through the readouts on his PADD. The display screen on the control board had shorted out. “With me,” Scotty said. Keenser nodded and followed him out of the transporter room, to a hardwired access point a few meters down the hall. 

The lights flickered again, heavier this time, and as they came back Keenser made a very alarmed noise. Disembodied lights flashed in the access alcove. The light spun and flickered like— _ Like the transporter. Like something beaming straight onto the ship.  _ Scotty stood frozen in shock as the light coalesced into a humanoid shape. It materialized into a human figure with pale skin and curly hair and a command-gold uniform shirt. 

Scotty gaped. “Ch… Chekov?” 

The figure screamed. The sound ripped from his throat, ragged and hopeless. Then he collapsed. Scotty rushed forward, unable to leave something that looked  _ that much like Chekov _ on the ground in pain. He fumbled for his communicator. “I need a medical team,” he said, kneeling next to the prone figure. “This is Scott in the transporter hall on deck three. I need a medical team now!”

The kid was still breathing. Every breath tore out of him like he had sandpaper in his lungs, but he was breathing. For a moment Scotty thought he was unconscious. Then his arm twitched. He dragged himself onto his side, trying to sit up. “Get—away,” he hissed, twitching as he tried to pull himself away from Scotty. “Get—”

“It’s alright, lad,” Scotty said. His mind raced.  _ It can’t be. It can’t. Chekov is here, onboard, we’d know if something happened—  _ “It’s alright now. There’s a medical team coming, they’ll fix you up, it’ll all be over soon—”

Chekov tipped his head back. He met Scotty’s eyes, and Scotty knew then that whoever was in front of him, it wasn’t the Chekov that he knew. 

The kid stared at him, his face slack, his eyes bright with tears. “S… Scott?”

“Aye,” Scotty whispered, unable to look away. “It’s me.”

“Help—me—” 

The turbolift down the hall opened and a medical team ran toward them. Fear crossed the kid’s face. His eyelids fluttered. “Help me,” he rasped. Then he passed out cold. 

The medical team swarmed around them. They lifted the kid onto a stretcher. A nurse pulled Scotty and Keenser aside and waved a tricorder over them. Scotty stood and watched, too stunned to do anything else. 

“Are you able to finish your shift?” the nurse said. The turbolift doors closed on the stretcher and the rest of the medical team. 

“I—I think I’d better have a lie down,” he said. Keenser made a sympathetic noise and patted his arm. Scotty put his own hand over Keenser’s without thinking about it. He lifted his communicator with his other hand. “Jiang—could you—could you get someone up to the transporter, please?” 

_ “Scotty!”  _ Jiang’s voice crackled over the communicator.  _ “What the hell is going on?”  _

Scotty stared at the turbolift. “I don’t know,” he said. 


	2. Chapter 2

Hikaru Sulu had a grey wool blanket in his quarters, one of the scattered personal effects that set his living space apart from every other regulation-tidy cabin. He kept it folded up at the foot of his bed, by the end table cluttered with tiny potted plants. However, it rarely stayed there. 

Pavel snagged the blanket from the end of the bed and brought it with him over to the couch. He flopped down next to Sulu and shook the blanket out over both of them. It was soft and light, with a marbled knit texture that felt soothing on Pavel’s skin. Sulu looked up from his book, blinking, as Pavel curled up next to him. 

“What do you need the blanket for?” Sulu said. “Didn’t you grow up in Siberia?” 

“St. Petersburg,” Pavel said. “Very different. You know this.” He set his PADD down on his lap and pulled up his drawing program. A half-finished sketch loaded onscreen. Pavel leaned into Sulu’s shoulder and began drawing, filling out the upper half of the image. “Blankets were invented in Russia.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sulu sounded like he was about to laugh. Pavel smiled. 

“Да. Is very cold in Russia, as you know,” he said. He burrowed a little closer into Sulu’s side. “You try spending all that time in the snow, huddling together with your children to stay warm. You would come up with some fantastic ideas, too.” 

“So that’s how Russia managed to invent so many things.” 

“Ну конечно. We are very innovative people.” 

Sulu snorted. Pavel laughed, too, and leaned over until the back of his head met Sulu’s lap. He grinned up at his friend. “And we know how to appreciate warm things.”

Sulu rolled his eyes. “You’re a menace,” he said, but he didn’t seem to mind. He rested one arm, the hand holding his book, on Pavel’s shoulder; he let his other hand drift into Pavel’s hair. 

“Enabler,” Pavel retorted. “What are you reading?”

_ “On Basilisk Station,” _ Sulu said.

“One of your mystery novels?”

“No. From the Honor Harrington series.” 

“Ah, the classics.” 

The overhead lights flickered. Pavel glanced up. He felt Sulu tense slightly. “What’s that about?”

“I don’t know,” Pavel said. He turned the problem over in his head. _A power surge? Why?_ There hadn’t been any sign of trouble in Engineering when his watch ended, but that was hours ago. “Do you think it is serious?”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Sulu said. “I’m sure Engineering can handle it, whatever it is.”

The lights flickered again. This time the room went dark for a few seconds.

“I will check with Mr. Scott on alpha shift,” Pavel said. 

He watched for a few more minutes, but it didn’t happen again. Pavel went back to his drawing, switching brushes to trace a star cluster at the edge of the picture. 

“Is that… a map?” Sulu said. 

“Да. Is Canopus Major—” Pavel indicated the cluster he had just added. “And surrounding systems.” 

“It’s beautiful,” Sulu said. 

“Is only a sketch,” Pavel said. “For practice. The measurements are not exact.”

“Still, that’s really—”

Sulu was interrupted by a distant bosun’s whistle—not from his cabin, but from the intercom in Pavel’s room. Pavel slipped his hand under the blanket, lifted his hips to grab his communicator, and lifted it. “Chekov here,” he said. 

_ “Mr. Chekov,”  _ Ensign Díaz said. They covered communications on the bridge during gamma shift.  _ “What’s your location?” _

“I am in my quarters,” Pavel said. He was seized by a sudden irrational fear that he had forgotten some important task. He sat up. “Am I needed on the bridge?”

_ “Negative,”  _ Díaz said.  _ “Just confirming your location.”  _ They paused, and then said,  _ “The captain asks that you stay in your quarters until further notice. Bridge out.”  _

“What was  _ that _ about?” Sulu said.

“I do not know,” Pavel said. 

After a moment, he leaned back again. Sulu let him, same as before. They stayed like that for a while. Pavel switched brushes again and sketched in the Epsilon Canaris system at the very top of the map. Five tiny planets ringed the blue giant. Their orbit intersected a field of asteroids that extended far beyond the star’s gravitational pull. 

“That looks really good,” Sulu said. 

“I can send you a copy, if you like,” Pavel said. “When I finish.” 

“I would like that. Thank you.” Sulu turned a few pages. “Wait,” he said suddenly, looking up. “You have alpha shift?”

“Yes?” Pavel said. He looked at Sulu upside down. “You know this.”

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“I will sleep when I am dead.”  


Sulu snorted. “Where did you hear that?”

“Old Russian saying. Really, is not a problem. Six hours of sleep is enough for me.” 

“Oh, right. You’re a teenager.” Sulu shook his head. “Savor that, ’cause it’s not gonna last.”  Someone knocked at the cabin door. “Come in.”

The door slid open, and Captain Kirk stepped into the room. 

“Captain!”

“As you were,” Kirk said. He looked at Pavel, lying in Sulu’s lap; then at Sulu, holding his book to the side. “Is there something you two want to tell me about?”

Pavel rolled his eyes. “You are so  _ American,” _ he said. “This is completely platonic.” 

“Right.” 

“Did you need something, sir?” Sulu said. 

“Just checking in,” Kirk said. “Chekov. You’ve been here all evening?” 

“Aye, sir.” Pavel frowned. “Since 1400 hours.”

“And you haven’t left at all in the last hour?”

“No, sir. Is something wrong?”

Kirk sighed. He looked tired. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “I just… needed to see for myself.” He nodded to them, and turned to leave. “As you were.”

He stepped out. The door shut behind him. Pavel and Sulu exchanged looks. 

“That’s strange,” Sulu said. 

“Да.” Pavel sat for another minute, considering the events of the last few minutes. He couldn’t make sense of it from any direction. He pushed back the blanket and sat up. “I think I will go to bed after all.”

“Good idea,” Sulu said, without looking up from his book. “Hey, leave the blanket.”

* * *

Jim Kirk approached the medbay with a profound sense of apprehension. He had multiple reasons to feel this way, all of them very logical.  _ Spock would be proud of me,  _ he thought, as he stepped off the turbolift on deck five.

For one thing, he had been on duty since the beginning of beta shift. It was almost the end of gamma shift  _ now,  _ which meant that Jim had been working for almost twelve consecutive hours. He didn’t see any problem with that, but if Bones found out, there would be hell to pay. And if Jim stepped into the medbay in his current state, he thought Bones would probably notice.  _ Maybe I can say I just woke up. Spock pulls double shifts all the time, and no one bothers him about it.  _ Jim already knew what Bones would say to that argument—something about physiological differences and  _ stop being such a damn martyr, you idiot.  _ He wasn’t looking forward to the lecture. 

More than that, though, he wasn’t looking forward to whatever weird situation the universe had cooked up for him this time, and once he stepped into the medbay, he would have to face it. Bones had said something about an injured man in the transporter who looked like Pavel Chekov but  _ wasn’t.  _ Wasn’t  _ their  _ Chekov, anyway—couldn’t be, because Jim had spoken to Chekov ten minutes ago, in his and Sulu’s quarters. That left a few possible explanations for the situation. Jim didn’t like any of them. 

He paused outside the medbay. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to neaten it, and scrubbed a hand over his face. Then he straightened up and stepped through the doors, trying to look as awake as possible. 

The medbay lights were dimmed, just enough to give the impression of evening. Bones and Chapel stood next to a biobed, where a slim figure in a gold shirt lay unconscious.  _ Shit. He really does look like Chekov.  _ Scotty sat on the next bed over, looking nervous and a little overwhelmed. 

“What’s the situation?” Jim said.

“He just  _ appeared, _ sir,” Scotty cut in, before Bones could say anything. “Like the transporter, only it wasn’t—it was the hallway and—I think it was the ion storm, personally. I’ve never seen an energy spike like that, it was off the charts—”

Jim held up a hand. Scotty stopped rambling. “Bones?” Jim said. 

“Whoever he is, he’s injured,” Bones said, looking down at his patient. Jim moved closer, more and more curious. “His nervous system is going haywire. He’s got pain receptors firing all over, but I can’t find a physical reason for it. Something is stimulating his brain without actually doing any damage to his body.” 

“Could it be from the ion storm?” Chapel said. “Or, if he beamed aboard spontaneously, that might have had the same effect as an electrical shock.”

“I haven’t ruled it out,” Bones said. “But that still begs the question of where he came from in the first place.”

“Is he… I mean, is he really...” Up close, the unconscious man’s appearance became even more baffling. It was undoubtedly Chekov’s face—same nose, same jawline, same strawberry blond curls—but it only took a second to see the differences. He had pale stubble on his jaw, enough growth that it had to be deliberate. He had a faint scar at his hairline and another over the bridge of his nose. His uniform was different, too: he wore a bright gold sash around his waist, and the insignia pinned to his shirt was all wrong. Anyone—or anything—trying to impersonate an officer on the  _ Enterprise  _ should have known better than to make mistakes like that.

“That’s another thing,” Bones said. “I got an error on the first scan, because the tricorder logged his results to Chekov’s file automatically. The computer couldn’t resolve the discrepancies. We ran a DNA test, just to be sure—same thing. He doesn’t just look like Chekov. Medically speaking, he  _ is _ Chekov.”

Jim blinked.  _ That doesn’t make sense, _ he thought, but something prodded at the back of his mind. A vague memory, almost like a dream, distant and hard to grasp. 

“Is he a clone?” Scotty said. Bones raised one eyebrow. Jim shook his head. 

“No,” he said. He tried to recall the memory, and felt the after-image of Spock in his mind—the older, self-assured Spock, who had melded with him on Delta Vega and left behind several lifetimes’ worth of memories.  _ Another Captain Kirk, another Doctor McCoy, another... _ “No. I think he’s… like Spock.”

“Spock?” Bones looked like he might have an aneurysm any minute. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

“Ambassador Spock,” Jim said. He made an urgent, meaningless hand gesture, thinking hard. “You know—the other Spock. He’s from another timeline.” Jim nodded at the kid in the biobed.  _ Other Chekov,  _ his brain supplied, since this version of their navigator seemed no different in age. The idea made perfect sense to him, but when he looked up, Bones was looking at him like he’d just grown an extra head. Chapel and Scotty just looked confused. 

“Oh,” Scotty said, after a long, silent pause. “On Delta Vega, right.” He nodded. “I remember him.” 

“You think it happened again?” Bones said. He waved a hand at Other Chekov. “You think he—he  _ beamed  _ onto the ship from another timeline?”

“Something like that,” Jim said. He glanced at Scotty. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but—he had to have come from somewhere, and we’ve seen this kind of thing happen before.”

The monitor over the biobed beeped. Chapel hit a button to silence it, while Bones bent over his patient once again. “Whatever he is, his nervous system’s lit up like a Christmas tree.” 

“He’s under sedation. He can’t possibly be feeling it,” Chapel said.

“Won’t do him a lick of good if he strokes out in his sleep, will it?” The conversation quickly eclipsed Jim’s medical understanding. He stood there for several more minutes anyway, watching as the biobed tracked heart rate, brain activity, and blood-oxygen levels minute by minute. 

“You said the computer couldn’t accept his scan,” Jim said. “What’s wrong with him? I mean—how is he different from our Chekov?”

Bones grimaced. “He has a dormant varicella-zoster virus. That’s the main thing. Our Chekov—he’s vaccinated for that. Everyone onboard is. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I saw varicella in the wild.” Bones gestured to his patient. “This one also has a couple old fractures that have never been logged in the file before. And some scar tissue, same thing.”

Jim nodded. “Call me when he wakes up,” he said, staring down at the familiar face on the biobed. “I want to talk to him.”

“The sedative should wear off in about five hours,” Bones said. “With all due respect, if you’re still awake when that happens, I’ll knock you out myself.” 

_ “Bones—”  _

“I’m serious, Jim. Go off duty, get some sleep. You’ll be better equipped to deal with all this in the morning.”

It wasn’t the lecture Jim had been dreading, but he knew it was time to fold all the same. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll—I’ll want to see the medical log in the morning, catch up on what I’ve missed.”

“Of course.”

Jim left the medbay with a million questions circling in his head. He wanted to review the medical log. He wanted to talk to Scotty, get a full report of what had happened in the transporter room. He wanted to ask Spock about the metaphysical implications of trans-dimensional travel….

It would all have to wait. As much as he hated to admit it, Bones was right. This wasn’t enough of an emergency to justify staying awake past hour twelve. If he tried, it would only limit his mental acuity and throw off his sleep schedule, and then on top of that Bones would be angry with him. 

_ No, Bones is right. Go off duty now, get my eight hours, and deal with it in the morning. I just hope nothing major happens before beta shift. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent way too long trying to figure out if officers on a _Constitution_ -class starship would be sharing a room or not before eventually going "fuck it" and making them suitemates. If I'm wrong about this, don't tell me. /j


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning:  
> \- brief mention of non-consensual drug use  
> \- discussion of torture, with death considered as a better alternative

_ Where am I? _

It was hard to think. Everything felt… soft. Every thought took longer to process. Chekov lay on a soft surface. The air on his skin was cool. His heartbeat rumbled in his ears, slow and steady. It felt like someone had drugged him. 

_ Shit. Not again.  _

He kept his eyes closed. It would be work to open them, and once he did, they would know he was awake. He couldn’t hear any voices; he thought he was alone.  _ That’s good,  _ he thought.  _ Better than last time.  _ That gave him at least a few minutes to work out where he was and who had him. 

_ Where am I?  _ Not Sulu’s quarters. His bed there wasn’t so soft. Not Engineering. It was too quiet. The only noise here was his heartbeat, and beyond that, a steady beeping. 

_ Oh no. Oh, God, please…  _

His heart started to beat faster. 

Chekov cracked one eye open, his heartbeat rising in his ears. He saw sleek silver walls lined with beds, a dim bluish light cast over it all. He was alone, but that was cold comfort in the sickbay of the  _ ISS Enterprise.  _

_ No, no, no—  _ His heartbeat rose. Chekov took a deep breath, trying to calm it before the sound alerted someone and he lost what little time he had left. He closed his eyes again. His thoughts raced, trying to remember how this happened.  _ I wasn’t injured. There was no away mission—we were in orbit around Halka II, awaiting the captain’s decision, and then— _

He remembered all at once. Remembered Captain Kirk delaying his mission to Halka II; remembered standing in the lift just afterward with the captain and his guards, and realizing that no one was watching him. None of them had even looked at him since they stepped into the lift.  _ This is my chance.  _ He remembered thinking it with cold certainty.  _ They will not have time to stop me.  _

Only Kirk had been ready. In a fraction of a second it had all gone wrong. The captain knocked the phaser aside. The first shot missed. Then the closest guard had grabbed Chekov’s arm and by the time the lift stopped, the fight was over. 

Then the agony booth. Pain building under his skin until he couldn’t stand, until he screamed his throat raw, until his vision blacked out. Then…

He couldn’t remember.  _ Something happened. It must have.  _ He had gotten out of the agony booth somehow, and it hadn’t been under his own power. And they had taken him to sickbay. 

_ I have to get out of here.  _

It didn’t make sense, but life rarely did. Maybe the captain had changed his mind. Maybe Dr. McCoy had asked to have Chekov as a victim, and torture him to death that way. It didn’t matter. Chekov opened one eye again, to make certain he was alone; then he dropped his hand off the biobed and felt for the access panel underneath. 

The access panel, meant for maintenance, had a loose hinge that could be pried off with the right leverage.  _ They haven’t fixed it yet.  _ He could hardly believe his luck. It was the same trick he had used last time he ended up in sickbay. Chekov set his fingernails against the gap, braced with the heel of his hand, and pushed. The panel swung loose. He worked his fingers into the wiring. He found the furthest-left wire and counted three over. He grabbed that wire, the one that connected the central computer to the monitor, and pulled as hard as he could. 

The wire snapped loose. Chekov froze. He heard his heartbeat again—slightly elevated, but steady. He sat up. No change. He turned sideways and slid off the bed. The heartbeat continued, a never-ending loop of the seconds before he had ripped the wire out. The computer thought he was still lying there. Chekov bolted for the door. 

It opened for him, easy as anything, and then he was out in the hallway. He felt dizzy with relief.  _ They didn’t even tie me down! _ Some poor nurse was going to suffer for that, but Chekov couldn’t bring himself to feel bad. He darted down the corridor, keeping one hand on the wall. The dizziness might not have been only relief. He made it ten meters before pain stabbed through his left knee. He yelped and fell against the wall.  _ No! Not again.  _ He forced himself up and kept going. 

His first impulse was to run to his and Sulu’s quarters, but— _ No.  _ That wouldn’t work this time. He was a known traitor. Even worse, he was a  _ failed _ traitor. Sulu would turn him in to the captain without a second thought. Same with Engineering—Mr. Scott ignored most power struggles among the crew, but he was loyal to the captain. There was nowhere to hide. No one onboard the  _ Enterprise  _ would help him if it meant risking their own life. He was alone. 

The pain struck again. It lanced up his entire leg this time, so sharp and sudden that Chekov almost tasted it. He fell again, sliding down the wall so he almost landed on his knees.  _ No! No! _ He hauled himself up and pushed on, step by step. He had to find a hiding place. Soon they would realize he had escaped sickbay. He had to be out of the corridor by then. 

He reached the next door in the wall and stopped, panting. His leg still hurt. His back stung, like angry wasps trying to burrow under his skin. He could feel himself sweating. The door slid open, and Chekov stepped through without thinking about it. He found himself inside the botany lab. 

_ I thought the botany lab was on deck seven?  _ He couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter anyway. The door shut behind him and Chekov stumbled away from it, searching blindly for a place to hide. His back was on fire. He couldn’t feel his toes. He staggered past the long tables lined with plants and fell to his knees near the back of the room. With the last of his strength he crawled under the nearest table and curled up on the floor. He couldn’t see. He didn’t know why. His whole body ached and burned. He might as well have been back in the booth.  _ Please, please… _

They must have discovered his escape by now. They must be looking for him. He was too close to sickbay, in too obvious a place—they would find him, they would drag him back, and then—

He didn’t know how long it was. He couldn’t see. His vision blacked out in patches, the way it had in the booth, as if a cloud of gnats swarmed in front of him. His body burned all over. He had known, before, that the agony booth left aftershocks in the nervous system, so the punishment continued long after a person was released. He hadn’t known what that really meant until now. 

He heard the doors open.  _ Someone’s here.  _ He tried to sit up and managed to move enough to see the black boots moving through the botany lab. They wore red shirts.  _ Security, _ Chekov thought.  _ Two of them. _ They would be armed. He had no chance of getting past them—and nowhere to go, even if he could—but if he attacked them, maybe they would kill him in self defense. A quick death by phaser was infinitely preferable to being strapped down and cut open on a medical table. 

If he was going to attack, he had to do it now. He had seconds before they discovered him. Chekov squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and then scrambled out from underneath the table. 

Black stars burst across his vision. His fingers closed around the nearest object, a small metal trowel, and he hurled it at the closest red figure. He flung himself at the other man with a crazed yell. They crashed to the floor. Pain burst across Chekov’s shoulders. He screamed. 

The world was pain and noise and light and the soft fabric of a uniform shirt twisting under his hands. Chekov grappled for the man’s face, for his neck, though all his instincts screamed for him to run away. If he ran they would stun him. If he went for the kill  _ right now _ they would respond in kind and it would all be over soon. He tightened his grip and heard the man choking as Chekov ground the life from him bit by bit.  _ Come on, come on, come on. Just shoot—! _

The phaser shot barely registered. Chekov didn’t feel it until his limbs went numb and he collapsed, prone, on the floor. Darkness washed over him. He couldn’t stay conscious. As his senses faded out, one thought flooded his brain. 

_ Why didn’t they kill me? _


	4. Chapter 4

“Computer, lights at thirty percent.”

The chronometer read 23:08, less than an hour before the start of alpha shift. Pavel slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom, doing his best to stay quiet. 

He had been asleep for around six hours. His communicator had logged no incoming messages.  _ Well, there is still time.  _ Pavel took a quick sonic shower, no more than ten minutes, and ran the hair-growth suppressor over his face so he wouldn’t need to shave. Then he dressed in a fresh uniform. His communicator sat on the bathroom counter, silent, the whole time. 

He checked the chronometer again. 23:29, and no word from the bridge on whether he was allowed to leave his cabin. Pavel didn’t mind that so much, except that he was scheduled to shadow in Engineering today, and he didn’t know if anyone had informed them that he was, through no fault of his own, confined to quarters.  _ Who is on duty today? Mr. Kyle? Ms. al-Tayyib?  _ He could call down to Engineering and inform them himself, but if he did that he wanted to be sure his information was accurate. He took his communicator back to his room and shut the door to be sure he wouldn’t wake Sulu. 

“Ensign Chekov to bridge.” 

_ “Bridge here.”  _

“Is the captain on duty?”

A few seconds passed before the voice of the delta shift communications officer came back.  _ “Negative. Commander Spock has the conn right now.” _

“May I speak with him?”

Another slight pause.  _ “Yes. Patching you through now.”  _

Pavel heard a soft click, and then Spock’s voice came through.  _ “I trust this is a professional inquiry, Ensign?” _

“Yes, sir. You see, at the end of gamma shift, the captain asked that I stay in my quarters until further notice. I am calling to confirm that order, as I am scheduled to shadow in Engineering this morning.” 

_ “I see,”  _ Spock said.  _ “Did the captain inform you why you were confined to quarters?” _

“No, sir,” Pavel said, trying not to sound too hopeful that Spock would tell him. As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything wrong, and he had no idea what circumstances would lead the captain to confine him—and only him—to quarters indefinitely. 

_ “I see.” _ Spock paused.  _ “You may work your scheduled shift in Engineering, provided that you check in with the bridge every hour until your duty shift. I will arrive at your quarters shortly to escort you. Spock out.” _

The transmission ended. Pavel blinked, thinking rapidly. He only had more questions now. Whatever had happened, Spock knew about it.  _ Of course. He has access to the captain’s log, if Kirk has not told him about it already…  _ It must be something important, since Spock had chosen to involve himself personally. Apprehension mixed with curiosity in Pavel’s mind. Even during delta shift, Spock would not take time away from the bridge unless it was strictly necessary.  _ Necessary to what? That is the question… _

Pavel spent the next few minutes pacing his room, chasing his thoughts in circles. Then the door chimed. When he answered it, Spock stood outside. 

“Good morning, sir,” Pavel said automatically. He regretted it at once. 

“It will not be morning for approximately twenty-five more minutes,” Spock said. He stepped back into the hallway, and Pavel followed him. 

“I know, sir,” he said. Spock nodded. They continued down the hall in silence. Spock, as always, appeared perfectly self-contained. If escorting a capable officer to Engineering seemed like a strange way to spend his time, he said nothing about it. “Mr. Spock, can I ask you something?”

“You already have, Ensign.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Pavel said, his face heating. Spock said nothing, so he forged ahead. “I mean to ask—what is going on? I cannot think of any reason why I should be confined to quarters. And no one will tell me why, or what has happened….” He trailed off, uncertain. Spock didn’t look at him, which was a relief. 

“I have informed Lt. al-Tayyib that you may be late in reporting to Engineering,” Spock said, after a moment’s silence, “If you will accompany me to the medical bay, I believe the situation will be best explained there.”

“Oh,” Pavel said. His sense of apprehension grew. “Of course, sir.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. 

The  _ Enterprise _ was often quiet late at night, as the end of delta shift bled into the beginning of alpha shift. The medbay was no different. When they entered, the staff were mostly absent, and all of the beds were empty, except for one in the far corner that had a curtain drawn around it. Dr. M’Benga stood next to the bed, reading something from his PADD. He looked up when Spock entered. 

“What can I do for you, Commander?” he said. He glanced past Spock, at Pavel, and something shifted in his face. “I take it you’ve come to see the patient?”

“We have,” Spock said. “How is he?”

“He’s sedated again,” M’Benga said. He glanced at his PADD again. “We had to adjust the dosage after the incident earlier. His metabolism is a bit different from—well, from what we expected.” He looked at Pavel again. “You’re sure?”

“Mr. Chekov wishes to know what has happened,” Spock said. “As the captain has not classified this information, I believe he is entitled to an answer.”

Pavel’s apprehension began to curdle into dread. His imagination conjured something lurid and frightening behind the curtain.  _ But it has to do with me. What could possibly…? _

M’Benga raised his eyebrows. “Alright,” he said. To Pavel he added, “Let me know if it’s too much for you,” and before Pavel could think about  _ that _ too much, M’Benga turned and pulled the curtain back. 

The man on the bed looked ordinary. He had none of the grisly injuries Pavel had imagined, and not a single alien feature. In fact, he looked familiar. He had curly hair and a square jaw, with a thin layer of stubble….

Pavel stumbled back. He looked up at M’Benga in horror, and then back at the stranger on the bed. “What—” His throat closed on the rest of his words.  _ It can’t be—it’s impossible— _

He looked again. He couldn’t deny what he saw. The man on the bed had Pavel’s own face. 

“At approximately 1700 hours, this individual was discovered by Mr. Scott in the hall outside the transporter room,” Spock said. Pavel looked up at him, grateful for a distraction, however brief. “He appeared to have beamed aboard the ship spontaneously. He was brought here, where medical scans revealed him to be genetically identical to you.”

“Боже мой,” Pavel whispered. Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed convulsively, determined not to vomit in front of his superiors. He looked at M’Benga again. “Is—is there—can I sit down?” 

“Of course,” M’Benga said. “Here.” He replaced the curtain, to Pavel’s immense relief, and guided him over to a chair towards the other end of the medbay. “I know it’s a lot to take in.” 

“Yes,” Pavel said. Laughter bubbled up out of him, though he felt nothing but icy horror down to his core. “This is—” He laughed again, and hid his face in his hands, unable to control himself any other way. 

“At this time,” Spock continued, “the captain believes him to have been displaced from an alternate timeline, though the possibility of cloning has not been ruled out.”

“A few hours ago—” M’Benga started, and then cut himself off. “It’s alright, Ensign. You don’t have to take it all in at once.” He laid a hand on Pavel’s shoulder. Pavel squeezed his eyes shut. It felt like a dream. He wanted it to be one, nothing but a bizarre, terrible dream, but he knew that it wasn’t. His dreams never felt so real. He could feel revulsion in his throat, hysterical tears pricking at his eyelids, and M’Benga’s warm hand on his back.

“I am sorry, sir.” He pulled his hands down into his lap and forced himself to look up at Spock, who stood nearby. “I—I should not be so—” He couldn’t think of the word in Standard. At the moment he could barely think in Russian.

Spock raised one eyebrow. “As the only other person on this ship to have experienced a comparable situation, I believe you are well within your rights to feel as you do.” 

“You felt this?” Pavel said, and winced. That wasn’t what he meant to say, but he was having trouble forming words. “Sorry, sir—”

“My introduction to Ambassador Spock was under markedly different circumstances,” Spock said, mercifully ignoring Pavel’s wording. “I had time to prepare myself for the implications of his existence. I was also able to view him as essentially a different person from myself, due to our difference in age.” He tilted his head forward, with an expression that might be construed as sympathetic. “You have neither of these advantages.”

Pavel nodded. He still felt like he might cry, but he found a strange sense of comfort in Spock’s measured, logical words. He glanced back at the curtain, thinking of the mirror image on the other side of it.  _ It doesn’t make sense,  _ he thought, but it did. It  _ could.  _ He just needed to know how. 

“You—” He looked up at Spock again. “You said it—he might be a clone?” 

“That is a possibility,” Spock said. “But we have no evidence of that at this time, and likely will not find any until we can speak with him.”

“There are some medical differences between the two of you,” M’Benga said. “So it looks like you’ve led different lives, in any case.” 

“Your confinement to quarters was for purely practical reasons,” Spock said, his voice a fraction warmer. “With a genetically identical individual onboard, the captain believed it would be prudent to keep you in one location, and the—” He hesitated. “—the alternate in another, to avoid any confusion.”

Pavel nodded. “And—that is why you came to escort me here,” he said. 

“Yes.”

Pavel nodded again. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to focus on the sensation and nothing else. He took a deep breath. “May I see him again?”

For a moment no one answered. “Are you sure?” M’Benga said. 

“Yes,” Pavel said, though at that moment he didn’t feel sure of anything. “I—I would like to see him again.” 

“Alright,” M’Benga said, after another dubious silence. Pavel rose and followed him back to the curtained bed. When M’Benga pulled back the curtain, he didn’t flinch. 

Pavel had never seen himself sleeping before. It was surreal to look at his own face on another person, at a different angle. He forced himself not to look away, to find the minute differences in the alternate’s face. The man had a thin, pale scar over his nose, and of course light stubble on his chin. That was a surprise. Pavel had always hated the feeling of hair on his face. He couldn’t imagine what would convince him to grow a beard, when suppressors were so easy to come by.  _ Perhaps they are not, where he is from?  _ But the alternate wore a Starfleet uniform, too, very similar to Pavel’s own, except for the garish gold sash around his waist. He had no rank stripes on his sleeves. Black fabric straps held his wrists down.

“Why is he tied down?” Pavel said. M’Benga grimaced. 

“He woke up around 2100 hours,” he said. “Earlier than we anticipated.” 

“You said his metabolism is different,” Pavel said, seizing on a detail that had passed him by earlier. “Different from… mine.”

“Yes,” M’Benga said. “He was alone when he woke up, and he seems to have panicked. He escaped sickbay and attacked the security officers who tried to bring him back. He didn’t hurt anyone too badly, but after that I decided it would be safer for everyone if we restrain him temporarily.”

“This will make him panic more,” Pavel said. “It would….” He imagined waking up in a strange place, surrounded by strangers, tied to a hospital bed. “It would scare me.”

M’Benga’s mouth twitched at the obvious irony, but he didn’t say anything about it. “I understand that,” he said, “but the goal here is a safe environment for everyone. Hopefully, once we get a chance to talk to him, the restraints won’t be necessary.”

Pavel looked down at the man again. His eyes caught on that familiar face, the face he had only ever seen looking back at him from a mirror.  _ The same... and different.  _ He tried to look past that, to see another person separate from himself, the way Spock had said. “When he wakes up, may I—may I speak with him?” 

“Mr. Spock?” M’Benga said.

It took a moment for Spock to answer. “I believe it would be beneficial for you to meet,” he said, his words measured as always. “However, at the moment it is hard to anticipate how your alternate might react to such a meeting, or the toll it might take on you.”

“Yes,” Pavel said, more in acknowledgement than agreement. He wasn’t disappointed. He wasn’t  _ not _ disappointed, either. He could not find words to describe how he felt. 

“I will speak to the captain,” Spock said. “If such a meeting is deemed safe, you will be the first to know.”

“Aye, sir. Thank you.” 

M’Benga replaced the curtain. “Will that be all, Commander?”

“Yes,” Spock said. “Thank you, Doctor.” He turned away from the bed. Pavel followed him, out of the medbay and down the hall to the turbolift. They entered in silence. The lift hummed to life. 

“Mr. Spock,” Pavel said. “Am I permitted to… talk about this with other members of the crew?”

“It would be preferable if you did not speak of it until we have more information,” Spock said.

“Aye, sir,” Pavel said. That made sense. It was a very strange situation, having another version of himself onboard, and he didn’t like the idea of trying to explain it to someone else.  _ I do not understand it myself.  _

“Of course—” Spock sounded the slightest bit hesitant, and Pavel looked up at him, surprised. “You are welcome to bring any concerns to me, should you find yourself… concerned.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Pavel said. “That is very kind.”

“Thanks are unnecessary,” Spock said. “You are human. It is only logical to provide structural support when you have experienced an event that may be emotionally compromising.” 

Pavel smiled. He had spent enough time around Spock to understand the meaning behind his brusque words. “I understand.”

The lift stopped. Pavel stepped out onto the Engineering deck. Lt. al-Tayyib stood at the master control panel nearby, frowning. She looked up at the sound of the lift doors.

“Mr. Spock!” Al-Tayyib looked flustered at the sudden appearance of the first officer in her domain. “If this is about the transporter, we’re doing everything we can to get it working safely—”

“I understand, Lieutenant. I am merely here to confirm Ensign Chekov’s arrival.” 

“Oh.” Al-Tayyib seemed to notice Pavel for the first time. “Oh, right. Good to see you, Chekov. You done any work on the transporter yet?”

“Only the basics,” Pavel said. “I understand it is very complicated.”

Al-Tayyib laughed. “That’s an understatement!” She glanced over her shoulder again at Spock. “We’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready, sir,” she said, “but it may be a while.”

“Understood.” Spock nodded once, and then stepped back into the lift. 

“You’re gonna learn something about it today,” al-Tayyib said, turning back to the control panel. “See, here, I’m rerouting power around the main transporter circuits so we can open ’em up for a full diagnostic, and do it safely. We’ve got a lot of extra power in circulation right now, because of that ion storm…”

Pavel stood next to her, watching her quick adjustments to the panel, and did his best to concentrate on the task at hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen to me. listen. I know this isn't canon, but there is no reason _anyone_ on the Enterprise should be working eight-hour shifts. this ship has a full complement of like 430 people. we have research _right now_ showing that the human attention span generally taps out at around four hours, and workers are more productive on shorter shifts. the Federation is supposed to be _at the very least_ post-scarcity, if not fully automated luxury space communist. nobody on this state-of-the-art socialist research vessel is working an eight hour shift. listen to me, dammit-


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning:  
> \- gore and torture are described, but don't actually happen onscreen. 
> 
> This is probably my favorite chapter that I've written so far. I hope you enjoy it, and comments are always appreciated!

Chekov opened his eyes into a dim bluish light. 

_ Fuck. Fuck.  _ His heartbeat thumped in his ears. Everything felt soft and hazy and still, but Chekov knew where he was.  _ Sickbay again. Ёбаное  _ _дно._

He was alone again. Behind a curtain this time. He couldn’t see the beds around him. He wondered for a moment what had happened to the security team.  _ Doesn’t matter.  _ He tried to sit up and fell back, unable. Soft straps held him to the bed by his wrists and ankles. They had tied him down. Chekov’s pulse quickened and he heard himself breathing faster.  _ No. No. Stay calm. Think through the problem.  _

He tried to slide one wrist free. It didn’t work. They had tied it too tight. He would have to dislocate his thumb to even have a chance, and then he still wouldn’t have any way to get his legs free. They had taken all his knives before he went into the agony booth. He found the origin of the straps, a slit in the metal frame of the bed. He couldn’t get his fingers inside. He couldn’t get the straps loose. He couldn’t escape. 

Chekov’s heart raced. He panted, each breath bringing a fresh wave of cold certainty.  _ I am… going to die. I am going to die slowly.  _ Fear shot through his stomach, mixing with the rage that burned in him like a furnace.  _ The agony booth was not enough for you, Captain? You wanted—what? To see me bleed? To see my skin ripped away and my heart beating outside my chest? _

Chekov would see all of those things soon. He knew what kind of work McCoy did. The man would dissect him slowly. He would take his time, making neat incisions, pausing to observe his subject’s every reaction. He would watch as Chekov bled, and screamed, and cried, and begged, and he would savor it all. He would draw it out as long as he could, until Pavel Andreievich Chekov was reduced to a whimpering lump of broken flesh. 

Chekov felt nauseous. The drugs seemed to be wearing off. His senses weren’t so hazy and he could feel a dull ache at the back of his neck, a remnant of the agony booth. He didn’t have much time. He couldn’t escape. Somewhere out of sight, a door opened. He didn’t have any time at all. 

“You’re awake.” The curtain rolled back, and McCoy stepped into view, looking down at him. He crossed his arms over his chest. “How do you feel?” When Chekov didn’t answer, he scoffed and glanced over at the bed monitor. “That’s a neat trick you pulled, hacking the biobed so it thought you weren’t moving. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that before.”

_ Liar.  _ Chekov had done it just three months ago, when some alien version of the flu got bad enough to land him in sickbay. McCoy had orders not to damage him, but the nurses had talked a lot about experimental drugs anyway, and Chekov had decided he’d rather sleep it off in his quarters than stay there another minute. It had worked out alright then, but he knew McCoy hadn’t forgiven him.  _ What game are you playing? _

It didn’t matter. Chekov would be dead soon. Nothing mattered. He fixed his eyes on the ceiling and tried to drain any emotion from his face. McCoy wanted to break him down, to make him cry and scream and beg.  _ You’ll have to work for it. You’ll have to drag it out of me.  _ Chekov wouldn’t give him the satisfaction any sooner than he had to. Maybe, if he held on long enough, he could bore the doctor into killing him outright. It wasn’t much to hope for. 

“I know you’re probably still in pain,” McCoy said. Chekov tried to tune him out. He stared at the ceiling and thought about snow falling in St. Petersburg. “It doesn’t look like you have any permanent damage from whatever the hell happened to your nervous system, but you still have nerve clusters lighting up here and there. You’re on a mild sedative-analgesic mixture that should help balance that out.” McCoy paused, like he expected Chekov to say something. To beg for mercy, most likely. Chekov ignored him. He imagined cold air on his face. He pictured snowflakes twisting in and out of oblivion as they fell from a white clouded sky into a snowbank. He still missed his home sometimes, though he tried not to think about it, and never spoke of it to anyone. 

He would never see home again. He was going to die screaming in space and never see his family or his country again. At least he could die thinking of them. 

“Now,” McCoy said, “what we’re all trying to figure out is why you hacked the biobed and ran off in the first place.” Someone walked by—a nurse, Chekov thought. His heartbeat began to rise. He tried to keep his breathing steady, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, but his body betrayed him. McCoy glanced at the monitor screen and frowned. 

He moved toward the monitor and Chekov’s breath caught in his throat. He stared at the ceiling.  _ Think of something else, think, think—  _ He saw dead trees in his mind’s eye. He imagined Elena and Mikhail, bundled in winter clothes and running ahead of him up the hill— 

“Are you okay?” McCoy said, right next to his head. Chekov resolutely did not flinch. “Hey, kid. I’m talking to you.”

“Fuck you,” Chekov said. He felt himself tearing at the seams, his control unraveling no matter how hard he clung to it. He didn’t look at McCoy. He didn’t need to see the doctor’s sadistic smile. He didn’t want that to be the last thing he saw. He stared at the ceiling. 

McCoy didn’t speak to him again. Chekov expected the torture to start then, but McCoy only stood at the monitor, while Chekov lay tied to the bed trying not to panic. He couldn’t quite get his heart rate down. McCoy kept  _ looking  _ at him. Chekov wanted to scream.  _ Stop! Fucking stop! Get the hell away from me!  _ He knew that was what the doctor wanted. He couldn’t give in so easily. 

The door at the far end of sickbay opened. Chekov kept his eyes on the ceiling as the footsteps drew closer, until he heard the voice that said, “How is he? Has he said anything yet?”

Chekov’s heartbeat leapt upward. The monitor beeped in warning. Chekov bolted up as far as he could before the restraints stopped him. He glared at Captain Kirk. 

“Come to watch me die, Captain?” he snarled.

“What?” Kirk had the audacity to look confused.  _ Bastard.  _ He looked past Chekov, at the doctor. “Is he—what’s wrong?”

“Not a damn thing that I can see,” McCoy said. He sounded angry. “Except something’s got his heart rate up, and he won’t talk to me.”

“I thought you would at least kill me yourself,” Chekov said. Anger bled into his voice. “But no. You’re too much of a coward even for that.” He met Kirk’s eyes. The captain never tolerated defiance. Maybe Chekov could strike at him one last time. It wouldn't save him, but it could make the captain angry, make him lose control for a moment— 

Only the captain didn’t look angry. He stared at Chekov, but his eyes held only confusion and— _ No. it couldn’t be.  _ Captain Kirk never pitied anyone. Chekov doubted he had the capacity to feel pity at all. 

_ But something is different this time. _

Chekov’s eyes caught on the captain’s uniform. For the first time he saw it and noticed the differences: the long sleeves, the high black collar, and the single medal pinned to the breast. Chekov had never seen that medal before.

“Look,” the captain said. He didn’t sound angry, either, and Chekov grew more confused. “I don’t know who you think I am, but no one here wants to kill you.”

“You—” It actually took a moment for Chekov to find a reply. “Then why give me to him?” He jerked his head at McCoy. 

_ “Give _ you? That’s not—you’re in the medical bay,” Kirk said. He glanced at McCoy, his face unreadable, and then cleared his throat. “Maybe we should start over. My name is Captain James T. Kirk—”

“I know who the fuck you are,” Chekov snapped. “I tried to kill you. Four hours ago, in the turbolift. I would have succeeded, if not for your guard.” 

He thought surely that would provoke a reaction, and for an instant, he saw one—the captain’s eyes widened and he stepped back, his gaze darting around the room. He looked surprised, confused, overwhelmed—but not  _ angry.  _ Then it ended. Raw emotions retreated behind a calm mask, and Kirk looked back at him with soft eyes. 

“That didn’t happen here,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’m not him.” 

_ What?  _ It sounded like—Chekov didn’t know. He didn’t understand. The captain said it with such conviction, as though he believed it himself, that Chekov had never made an attempt on his life. He seemed so sure that for a moment Chekov himself doubted—but no, he remembered doing it. Remembered Kirk’s sneer when he grabbed Chekov’s wrist and knocked the phaser away. The man in front of him didn’t seem capable of making that expression.  _ How…? _

He couldn’t think of anything to say. The captain didn’t press him. He just  _ stood _ there, watching, as Chekov tried and failed to make sense of the last few minutes. 

“I don’t understand,” he said at last. “I…”  _ I tried to kill you. I should be dead.  _

“We aren’t gonna hurt you, kid,” McCoy said. Chekov flinched. He had forgotten how close the doctor was. He didn’t process the words for another minute. 

“What? But I—you—” The universe had turned upside down. Or maybe the agony booth had finally broken his mind. Maybe none of this was really happening. Chekov’s heartbeat sped up again. 

“I don’t know where you came from, or what happened before you got here,” McCoy went on, “but as long as you’re in  _ my _ medbay, no one is going to hurt you. I promise.”

It was these last words that broke him, these impossibly kind words spoken in the distinctive drawl that had only ever threatened torture before. The captain might be capable of pretending kindness, patience, pity. Chekov knew that Dr. McCoy was not. 

“Oh,” he said. He heard his heart pounding on the monitor behind him. He felt dizzy again, even lying down. “Oh.”

“Don’t fight it, kid,” McCoy said, and that was the last thing Chekov heard.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third time's the charm.

When Chekov woke up the third time, he was ready. 

The steady beating of his heart woke him first, just as before. His senses brought him a fuzzy awareness of his surroundings: the soft bed underneath him, the low-pitched sounds from the monitor, the cool, dry air. Chekov took a deep breath.  _ I will not panic this time,  _ he thought, and opened his eyes. 

He was not alone. The figure in the corner of his vision made him startle, and his heart rate spiked. He turned his head to see a tall, blonde woman standing at the monitor. She wore a high-collared blue shirt with a silver insignia pinned to it. She met his eyes and smiled at him. 

“Good morning,” she said. She had a nice voice, Chekov thought. She was pretty. He didn’t remember ever seeing her before, but then he had previously tried to avoid sickbay as much as possible. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. How are you feeling?”

Chekov frowned. It was a strange question, since the woman had the bed monitor right in front of her. “I’m fine,” he said. It was true. He didn’t feel any pain, and whatever drugs they had given him dulled his senses.  _ Maybe this is a trap,  _ he thought, but he couldn’t find the end goal of it, or the mechanism it worked by. He didn’t even know who had control of him anymore, let alone what they planned to do. 

“That’s good,” the nurse said. “You seemed scared when you woke up earlier. Do you feel the same way now?”

“No,” Chekov said. “I will not panic. I will cooperate.” 

_ You don’t know what you’re promising,  _ his mind hissed at him, but the threat didn’t feel real enough for Chekov to respond.  _ Maybe none of this is happening,  _ he thought.  _ Maybe I am dreaming. Maybe I am already dead.  _ He had never imagined the afterlife this way, but maybe he had been wrong.  _ I am wrong about a lot of things.  _

“That’s good to hear,” the nurse said. She smiled at him again. It was a nice smile, too sweet and kind to belong in the sickbay of the  _ Enterprise.  _ “My name is Christine Chapel. I’m a nurse.” She paused. “What’s your name?”

Another strange question. She must know the answer already.  _ Maybe this is a cognitive test?  _ He had already agreed to cooperate, regardless. 

“Pavel Chekov,” he said. “I don’t think I have a rank anymore.”

“Why not?” 

Chekov took a deep breath. Now he knew she was fucking with him. It had been hours since his assassination attempt. Everyone onboard must know some version of the story by now.  _ What am I supposed to say? What do they want? A confession? Why?  _ The captain had never needed one before. 

Captain Kirk appeared in his mind’s eye, with that stupefying look of pity on his face.  _ “That didn’t happen here. I’m not him.”  _ The words rang in his ears.

“I…” He didn’t know how to answer. He turned his head to look past the nurse, at an empty wall on the far end of the room. He knew better than to leave an officer waiting for an answer, but he had no idea what she wanted him to say.  _ “I tried to kill the captain, and now I am the only one who seems to remember”?  _ It didn’t even make sense to him. “I don’t know.”

He braced for a harsh reply, maybe a slap, but the nurse just nodded. “That’s alright,” she said. “Everything is a little confusing right now.”

Chekov bristled at her patronizing tone of voice, but under the circumstances it was probably the best response he could have hoped for. He laid his head back and stared at the ceiling. The nurse didn’t ask any more questions, and the next few minutes passed in silence. 

“I’m going to step away for a few minutes,” the nurse said. “Is that alright?”

“Yes,” Chekov said without thinking, and then wondered why she had asked. It was too late to change his answer. She walked away, and Chekov saw that her blue shirt was really a tunic that fell to her mid-thigh. She wore black leggings underneath, and no sash. He had never seen a woman’s uniform so modest.  _ Maybe this is normal in sickbay? _

A dull ache pulsed at the base of his elbow. Chekov shifted, tugging idly at the straps holding him down.  _ How long has it been?  _ He pulled his arms up as far as he could and let the rough fabric grate on his skin. Stinging pain bloomed in the small of his back. He winced, shifting around again to try and put pressure on it. The pain did seem to be reducing in severity, at least. 

_ Why are they doing this?  _ Some treacherous part of his brain actually believed what Dr. McCoy had said, that no one was going to hurt him. It made no sense, but  _ nothing  _ had made sense since he blacked out in the agony booth. He had tried everything he could think of to protect himself, and none of it had turned out right, and yet somehow he was still alive. He was tired. He wanted to believe that he could stop fighting now.

_ You’re too trusting, Pasha. _

His mother’s words echoed in his head. He could still see her face, tight with worry and unshed tears. They had fought before he left for the Academy. She had tried to convince him not to go, tried to tell him it would be dangerous and miserable and everything else that life in Starfleet was. He hadn’t listened. _ Always so smart. Too smart to listen, too smart to learn.  _

He missed his mother. He missed his family. He wanted to go  _ home. _

Footsteps rang on the smooth floor. Chekov blinked back his tears, swallowed his homesickness, and fixed a blank expression on his face as Nurse Chapel walked back around the curtain. 

“The captain is here to see you,” she said. Chekov’s expression didn’t change, but his rising heartbeat gave him away. The nurse frowned. “You don’t have to talk to him,” she said. “You’re not in trouble; he just has a few questions. I can stay with you, if that would help.”

“You are too kind for this,” Chekov whispered. He was losing control again.  _ Stop! Stop talking!  _ He took a deep breath. “I will not panic,” he said. “I will cooperate.” He didn’t know if he wanted her to stay. He didn’t know whether to be relieved when she stepped away from the bed, and Captain Kirk took her place. 

“Good morning,” he said. 

Chekov took another breath. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that, but he had to say something. “Is it morning?”

“Yes,” the captain said. “It’s 4:47, about two thirds of the way through alpha shift.”

“I know,” Chekov said, and heard his pulse rising. “I know the watch cycle, sir.”

The real Captain Kirk would have struck him for that, but this—this imposter just looked at him with those endless blue eyes. Chekov stared back. He never would have spoken to Captain Kirk this way before—he knew better than that—but now… 

“That’s interesting,” Kirk said. He didn’t sound angry. “You seem to know a lot about the  _ Enterprise.  _ Care to explain that?” 

“I have been an officer aboard the  _ Enterprise  _ for almost two years, sir,” Chekov said. He had agreed to cooperate. He didn’t know what had changed, for everyone to suddenly treat him like a doll made of glass, but all he could do at the moment was play along. 

“You’re nineteen Earth-standard years old,” Kirk said.

“Yes,” Chekov said. This was all easily verifiable information. He had long since lost track of where the conversation was going. 

“You received your commission and were assigned to the  _ Enterprise _ as a navigator in 2258,” Kirk continued. “Prior to that, you completed a year of service as a cadet aboard the  _ USS Antares.” _

“No,” Chekov said, and flinched, but again there was no reprimand. “I—I served on the  _ Enterprise  _ as a cadet. That is—” He blinked as the rest of Kirk’s words caught up with him. “Did you say  _ USS?”  _

For a moment, there was no answer. 

“Yes,” Kirk said, at last. “It stands for United Star Ship. This is the  _ USS Enterprise,  _ serial number NCC-1701.” He paused. “Is your ship called something different?” 

_ Your ship.  _ The real Captain Kirk would never credit the  _ Enterprise _ to anyone other than himself. But this man had set himself apart from Captain Kirk, enough times that Chekov already thought of them as different people.  _ Why shouldn’t he command a different ship? _

“I am—” Chekov shook his head. “I was an officer aboard the  _ ISS Enterprise.  _ Imperial Star Ship,” he added, before Kirk could ask. 

Kirk nodded. He frowned, but there was no danger in his expression. “Alright,” he said. “How did you know to hack the biobed?”

A chill ran down Chekov’s spine.  _ Ah. So this is an interrogation.  _ It was the strangest,  _ gentlest _ interrogation he had even been part of, but interrogation all the same. 

“I have done it before,” he said, careful to keep his voice level and clear. “When I was sent to sickbay. There’s a loose panel underneath the bed. It exposes the wiring.” 

“Okay,” Kirk said. “And you didn’t want to be in the medical bay. Any particular reason for that?” 

Chekov fixed his eyes on the ceiling and tried to think how to answer. Maybe this wasn’t the real Captain Kirk. Maybe, by some impossible twist of fate, he had escaped the  _ ISS Enterprise.  _ He still didn’t know what these people wanted, or what they would do with him. 

“I thought I would be tortured,” Chekov said. “I wanted to avoid that.” 

“Can’t blame you,” Kirk said, almost to himself. Louder, he said, “No one is going to torture you here. Not now, not ever. I know… it doesn’t seem like you have any reason to believe me. But I hope you’ll see that that’s not how we do things here.” 

“Yes, sir,” Chekov said. He could see that if Kirk had wanted to torture or kill him, he would have done it already. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility of a long game, but it seemed like he might be safe, at least for the moment. “May I ask a question?” 

“Of course,” Kirk said. A bitter smile crossed Chekov’s face at how easily he said it. 

“Where is  _ here,  _ exactly?” 

Kirk didn’t answer for a moment. “Well,” he said, at last, “I don’t think there’s an easier way to say this. You are aboard the  _ USS Enterprise,  _ in orbit around Halka II, Alpha Quadrant. Based on—everything you’ve said so far, I think you came here from an alternate timeline.”

“Oh,” Chekov said. “Okay.” 

Now he knew they were fucking with him. It was a good attempt, he had to admit; the captain, or whoever he was, had played his part admirably. His attitude, his uniform, even the errors he’d made in Chekov’s service record—it all lined up. Chekov couldn’t find the lie. They had mixed in just enough truth to make it invisible. 

“You believe me?” Kirk said. 

“I am familiar with multiverse theory,” Chekov said, instead of answering. He glanced sideways at the captain, watching his reaction. “I understand the idea.” 

A short pause. “Well, that’s good,” Kirk said. 

A bosun’s whistle trilled from a nearby speaker. Chekov startled.  _ “Bridge to Captain Kirk,”  _ a voice said. Kirk took out his communicator and stepped away from the bed. “Kirk here.” 

_ “Engineering reports that…”  _

Chekov couldn’t make out the rest of the message, nor what Kirk said in reply. He watched for a moment, and then laid his head back and shut his eyes. He took a deep breath. 

_ You’re too trusting, Pasha.  _

His mother had been right. Right about Starfleet, and right about him. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.  _ An alternate timeline. How stupid do you think I am?  _ The back of his throat ached. So Kirk was going to treat him like—like a toy. Like some  _ object  _ that he could manipulate and torment for his own amusement. Pike had done the same thing, and dammit, Chekov had thought he was done playing those games when Kirk took command. 

At least under Pike he had had his rank and his reputation as the best navigator on the  _ Enterprise.  _ He had none of that now. His only option was to play dumb and play along until he found a way to turn the captain’s expectations against him. He knew how to play dumb; he knew how to play  _ trusting. _ He had done it before. He could do it again.

He heard the captain returning and opened his eyes. 

“I have to go,” Kirk said. “We can talk more later.” 

Chekov nodded. “May I ask a question?” 

“You don’t have to ask every time,” Kirk said. He sighed. “Go ahead.”

Chekov widened his eyes. He looked sideways at Kirk, just for a second, and then looked away, like he couldn’t bear to hold eye contact. “Is—is Sulu here?” 

Kirk didn’t answer at first. For a few seconds, Chekov was seized by a horrible fear that the answer was  _ no _ —that Sulu was gone, killed as a collaborator, or by one of his enemies. 

“There is a Lieutenant Sulu here,” Kirk said, at last. “You knew him, I’m guessing?”

“Yes, sir,” Chekov said. As if he didn’t know. As if everyone onboard didn’t know exactly what kind of relationship he and Sulu had. 

“That’s good to know,” Kirk said. “If you’d like to talk to him, I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Chekov said. Kirk nodded. Then he walked away. 

Chekov took another steadying breath. He couldn’t trust the captain. He couldn’t trust anyone; he had learned that in his first week at the academy. But he could play along, gather information, and plan his next move. He knew how to do that. He could do it again.

Nurse Chapel walked back to his bedside. “Feeling better?” 

Chekov turned his head to look at her. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you.” 

“It looks like a pretty quiet morning,” she said. “You mind if I put some music on?” 

“No,” Chekov said. Chapel smiled at him. 

She walked into the next room, and a moment later, soft blue synth began playing over the intercom. Chekov stared up at the ceiling, and waited.


	7. Chapter 7

Jim stepped into the rec room on deck three. No one seemed to notice him. The room was half full already, mostly with people scheduled for beta shift who had yet to wake up completely. Jim joined the line for the replicator and let his gaze roam across the room. His eyes landed on a table in the furthest corner.

Scotty and Chekov sat together, several feet from anyone else in the room. Chekov had a plate in front of him; Scotty held a steaming cup of coffee. He looked much less awake. Chekov was talking with his mouth full, gesturing with his free hand. He looked carefree. Happy.  _ Normal.  _

_ He was afraid of me. _

“Good morning, sir,” the person in front of Jim said. He looked over, blinking, at a young Science ensign with dark hair. He couldn’t remember her name. 

“Morning,” he said. The ensign stepped back, giving him access to the replicator. Jim shook his head. “You were here first,” he said. “Go ahead, uh… Moreau, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Moreau said. She beamed at him. “Thank you, sir.”

“No problem.” 

When he looked back at the corner table, Scotty was the one talking. Chekov listened with a slight frown on his face. Jim wondered what they were talking about.  _ Something in Engineering? Or last night?  _ Chekov already knew about his double. That was Spock’s doing. If it had been up to Jim, he probably would have waited to tell the kid, but he had been asleep. He hadn’t thought to restrict the information. Spock had been in command, and without explicit orders to the contrary, he had decided to tell Chekov the truth. Now Jim had to deal with the fallout. 

_ I don’t think he believes me. I can’t really blame him.  _

He reached the front of the line and plugged in the card for his usual breakfast. He wanted coffee more than anything else, but he still had the Halka II mission ahead of him, and he needed to have something solid in his stomach before he dealt with that. 

He took his tray from the synthesizer and carried it over to the corner table. Chekov and Scotty saw him coming, and their conversation died away as he approached. Two pairs of eyes stared at him. 

“Morning.” Jim sat down at the table. He took a sip of coffee and winced at the heat. 

“Good morning, Captain,” Chekov said. His thick accent had never sounded so comforting. Jim felt himself smiling, and Chekov smiled back. It was a welcome sight. 

“Oi,” Scotty said, by way of greeting. “Chekov here tells me he’s met his doppelganger already.”

“Uh,” Jim said. Somehow the blunt statement caught him off-guard, though he had spent the last few hours thinking about the situation. 

“He was sleeping when I saw him,” Chekov said. “I do not know much more than you.” 

“Spock thought it would be best to just tell the truth,” Jim said. This was Scotty’s business too, as Jim’s second officer. He deserved to know. “We can’t keep him in the medical bay forever. Once I report him to Starfleet, we’re probably going to have to notify everyone onboard. And it’s—” Jim gestured at Chekov. “You know. It’s  _ him.”  _

“Aye. So it is.” Scotty gave Chekov a calculating look. Chekov took a bite of his pancakes and stared back. Jim sipped his coffee. Scotty glanced at him. “You’ve spoken with him?”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “Twice.” 

Scotty frowned. Chekov turned his big blue-grey eyes on Jim, his expression open and curious. 

“Well?” Chekov said. “What is he like?” 

Jim opened his mouth to answer, and then hesitated. He didn’t know where to start.  _ He’s afraid of me. He doesn’t believe anything I said. He hates me, and I think I know why.  _ He didn’t know what to say, but he couldn’t just sit there in silence. 

“Well,” he said. “He has a different accent.” 

_ “WHAT?”  _

Half the rec room looked over at them. Chekov clapped a hand over his mouth, but the look in his eyes was worth a thousand words.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jim said. “He’s still Russian. His accent is just, uh, a lot less noticeable.” 

“You mean he sounds more American,” Scotty said. 

Jim sighed. “Yeah.” 

“Why?” Chekov said. “Did you ask him?”

“No,” Jim said. “We didn’t get to that. First I had to convince him we weren’t going to torture him.” 

He knew he sounded bitter. His Chekov looked at him with a mixture of surprise and worry, and in his mind’s eye Jim saw the identical face that had worn so much anger and fear. 

“Why would he think that?” Chekov said. 

Jim was tempted to lie and say  _ I don’t know,  _ to buy some time before he had to explain the phantom memories in his head. He might have, if it had just been Chekov asking. But Scotty was watching him, too, and Scotty was the second officer of the  _ Enterprise.  _ He deserved the truth. 

“Because of where he came from,” Jim said. He looked around. No one seemed to be listening in. He lowered his voice anyway. “He came from… another timeline. Not the one Nero came from. Somewhere else.” He glanced at Chekov. “This is confidential, by the way. Don’t go sharing it.”

“Aye, Captain,” Chekov said, with utmost sincerity. 

“He told you this?” Scotty said. 

“Not exactly,” Jim said. “He gave me the broad strokes, but—I think I already knew. When I met Spock, Ambassador Spock—when we mind-melded. I saw everything in his head.” A dizzying kaleidoscope of information, not learned but  _ experienced  _ in the space of an instant. “There were these memories. Of another  _ Enterprise.  _ Another timeline, where everyone was violent and unpredictable and—and cruel. I think he came from there.”

It sounded ridiculous even to Jim, who knew what he was trying to say. No one responded at first. Scotty hummed and drank his coffee; Chekov picked at his food. The kid looked up at Jim with a puzzled frown, then back at his plate, and then back at Jim. 

“So,” he said, after a long stretch of silence. “He is very different from me?”

Jim let out a long breath. He made a conscious effort to relax, and only then did he realize how much tension he was carrying in his shoulders. “Yes,” he said. “Even if—if I’m wrong, he’s definitely different from you.” He saw something like relief on Chekov’s face.  _ Of course. How weird is it to see another version of you?  _ Jim couldn’t imagine. “He’s not you,” he said. “Chekov, he’s—he’s not a replacement for you.”

“I know, Captain.” Chekov smiled, a little wry, like he found the whole situation funny. Maybe he did. That was probably better than the alternative. 

“I haven’t submitted my report yet,” Scotty said. “Haven’t had time.” He nodded at Jim. “You know, when the poor bastard beamed into the transporter hall, he was screaming in pain.” 

_ “No,”  _ Jim said, horrified, “I didn’t know that, Scotty, what the hell.”

“It seemed strange at the time,” Scotty said. “Beam transport isn’t supposed to cause pain. But if you’re right about all that—” He shrugged. “Well, it might explain things.” 

“Dr. M’Benga said that he panicked when he woke up,” Chekov said. “It would explain this also.” 

“Maybe,” Jim said. Already he wanted to go back and talk to Other Chekov again. He had tried to be subtle before, not wanting to scare the kid any more than he already had, but that approach didn’t give him a lot of leeway to press for answers. And he badly wanted answers. “I want to see that report, Scotty.” 

Scotty nodded. “Aye, I’ll get that finished straight away,” he said. “Very strange, the lot of it.”

Jim let out a long breath. “Yeah. That’s for sure.” 

They ate in silence after that. Scotty finished his coffee and left to check in with the engine room. Jim ate his eggs and toast and fruit and hardly tasted any of it. He dumped his empty tray into the recycling unit. 

He walked up to the bridge with Chekov on his heels. They didn’t talk. When Jim looked over his shoulder he saw a faraway look in the ensign’s eyes. 

_ He wanted to talk to Sulu. _

He thought back to the night before, to his Chekov and Sulu cuddling in their room without any self-consciousness. The memory made him smile. He knew Chekov and Sulu to be close friends—maybe more, but that was their business. Ambassador Spock had spoken of them the same way in his time.  _ Maybe some things are constant? Maybe it would help, talking to Sulu. Even if he’s not the same.  _

They reached the bridge. Jim stepped on deck and saw everyone sit up a little straighter. Spock stood up from the captain’s chair. Most of the beta shift crew were already present. Chekov went over to the navigation console and relieved Lt. Riley. Jim locked his hands behind his back and straightened his spine. He did his best to push his questions to the back of his mind, and focus on the task at hand. He had a job to do. 

“Captain, the Halkan Council has been quiet since we arrived,” Uhura said. 

“Open hailing frequencies, inform them we’ll be beaming down in the next few minutes,” Jim said. “Uhura, you’ll be with me and Scotty on the away team.”

“Yes, Captain.” Uhura pressed a button on her console. “Bridge to Mr. Scott.”

“Maintain standard orbit over Halka II,” Jim said, in the direction of the helm. “Mr. Spock, you have the conn.” 

He left the bridge again, headed for the transporter. Uhura walked with him, and for the first time that morning Jim felt himself settling into something like calm. On away missions, he only ever had to think about one thing at a time. 

* * *

Pavel was not prepared for beta shift to be as boring as it was. 

Something always seemed to be happening in Engineering. He had spent most of alpha shift assisting Lt. al-Tayyib and several other engineers with transporter repairs, fetching tools and recording test results and doing his best to memorize the name and location of everything he saw. He still didn’t know all of the language, but he was learning much more about the hard science and mechanics behind all the theory he had learned at the academy. Al-Tayyib had even let him supervise a couple of voltage tests. As far as Pavel knew, the Engineering department was still working on the transporter, while he was stuck on the bridge, monitoring a standard elliptical orbit around Halka II. 

Sulu leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. Practically speaking, he didn’t really need to be at the helm during a standard orbit; Halka II’s gravitational pull would keep the  _ Enterprise  _ in orbit as long as she needed to be there. Regulations still required a crew member to watch the helm at all times, but Pavel could have done that on his own.  _ I’m not doing anything else. _

“Engineering reports the transporter seems to be working as normal,” said Lt. Alden, from communications. 

“Good,” Spock said. “We will confer with them again before the away team beams back.” 

Pavel pulled up a navigational chart from his console. They were near the edge of Federation space here, among stars that had only ever been charted by unmanned probes—or never charted at all. He pinned Halka II to the edge of the chart and then scaled down so he could see the stars surrounding them.  _ Where will we go next?  _ He picked a red giant at random and began working out coordinates. He had to calculate distance, account for the gravity of the star and their escape velocity leaving orbit. It was far from the most complex course he had ever run, but the numbers were soothing. 

His mind wandered back to the rec room, to what Scotty had said to him over breakfast, before the captain joined them.  _ “I knew he wasn’t you, lad.”  _ They had talked about the alternate. They had both been thinking about it.  _ “As soon as I looked at him, I knew. He had a look in his eye, like… like a hunted animal.”  _

The captain had said something similar.  _ “He’s not you.”  _ He had said it urgently, as if trying to argue the point. Pavel believed him; he was not superstitious about these things. He could accept the existence of another person who happened to share his physical form. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing Starfleet had ever encountered. It had already happened at least once before. He wondered if maybe the captain had been trying to convince himself. 

The computer beeped at him. Pavel reached over to silence it without looking.  _ He seems tired,  _ he thought, remembering the faraway look in Kirk’s eyes when he joined them at breakfast.  _ Worried. I wonder if this is a security risk. M’Benga said he tried to escape… and attacked members of the crew. The captain will report this to Starfleet Command, but we’re still several light years from anywhere... What Starbase is closest? 47? 301? We may be stuck with him on the ship for quite a while— _

“Pavel,” Sulu hissed. Pavel snapped back into the moment and realized abruptly that Spock had already said his name twice. 

“Sorry, sir!” His eyes refocused and he saw a cluster of lights blinking on his console. “I will do that right away.” He had to think back a few minutes to recall what Spock had asked for. “We are approximately seventeen hundred kilometers from the planet’s surface, and our orbital velocity is… seven kilometers per second, sir.”

“Thank you, Ensign.” Spock’s voice was very dry. 

_ “Ohh-kay.”  _ That was Mr. Kyle’s voice, over the intercom.  _ “Yeah, that’s it. We’ll need to recalibrate those sensors. Thanks, Mr. Spock. Chekov. Kyle out.”  _

“Are you good?” Sulu said in an undertone. Pavel nodded. He could feel himself blushing. 

“Yes, fine,” he said. “I just…” 

“Zoned out?” Sulu said. 

“Да. Yes. Thank you.”

Sulu frowned. “Did something happen? In Engineering?” 

“No, no,” Pavel said. “Nothing like that. I just…” He realized then, though he had known all along, that he couldn’t tell Sulu what he had been thinking about. It was confidential information, as the captain had reminded him. “I was just thinking. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Sulu said. He still looked worried. Pavel wanted to reassure him, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that would help. “How was Engineering, by the way? Did you find out what was up with the lights last night?”

“Oh! Yes, of course.” Pavel laughed, mostly out of surprise. Sulu was closer to the truth than he thought. And Pavel wasn’t used to hiding the truth from his best friend. “It was only a power surge. There was an ion storm, when we arrived here, which caused electromagnetic interference with the ship.” 

Sulu raised his eyebrows. “That sounds pretty serious.” 

“Is nothing to worry about,” Pavel said. He looked at the navigation computer. He didn’t like lying to Sulu. Even if they hadn’t been friends, Sulu was technically his commanding officer. It felt wrong. 

Sulu turned back to his console. “Well, that’s good,” he said. 

“Yes,” Pavel said. He opened the navigation computer to examine the subspace pathway the computer had calculated. The bridge sank back into silence. Sulu leaned back in his chair with a quiet sigh and stared out the viewscreen. Pavel fidgeted with the computer, running one course after another and double-checking the computer’s calculations. The  _ Enterprise’s _ navigation system, though impressive, had long since lost its novelty. With Halka II spinning in slow motion below them, and Sulu leaned back in his chair at the helm, Pavel had nothing to do but sit at his station and wait for the away team to come back. 

“Slow day, huh,” Sulu said. 

“Don’t jinx us,” Pavel grumbled, though he might have welcomed a minor emergency just then. Not a red alert, but something to pass the time. He waited a moment, just in case, and then sighed. His mind wandered back to Engineering.  _ I wish I was recalibrating sensors.  _

Something always seemed to be happening in Engineering, but Pavel had been assigned to the bridge. For now, all he could do was wait. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally had just one chapter that follows Kirk and prime!Chekov (aos prime Chekov? you guys know what I mean) and explores their reactions, but it got long enough that I decided to split it. the pacing might be a little weird. 
> 
> the next couple of chapters will heavily reference the TOS episode _Mirror, Mirror;_ not a surprise in a mirrorverse fic, I guess, but if you haven't seen that episode I would highly recommend it.


	8. Chapter 8

“We believe what you say, Captain Kirk, but our position has not altered. The Halkan Council cannot permit your Federation to mine dilithium crystals on our planet.”

Jim stood on a low stone dais, looking down at Tharn, the leader of the Halkan Council. The man sat on an ornate bench. He might have been human, except for the strange way light reflected off of his eyes. Blue ritual markings were painted across his forehead. He was old. Jim towered over him. 

“We’ve shown the council historical proof that our missions are peaceful,” Jim said. He and Uhura had spoken at length, before the entire Halkan Council, on the history of the Federation. Scotty had offered an explanation of the many industrial uses for dilithium crystals. The council had heard all of it, with great patience, Jim thought, but from the beginning he’d had a feeling of what the answer would be. 

“We accept that your Federation is benevolent at present,” Tharn said. “But the future is always in question. Our dilithium crystals represent awesome power. Wrongful use of that power, even to the extent of the taking of one life, would violate our history of total peace. To prevent that, we would die, Captain. As a race, if necessary.” His soft, firm voice did not change as he said these words, but Jim felt a chill run down his spine. 

_He means it._ He couldn’t imagine a cause for which he would sacrifice his people, his _crew._ Even the thought repulsed him. 

“I… admire your ethics,” he said to Tharn. “I hope we can prove ours.” He glanced back at Uhura and Scotty, who stood by the edge of the dais. Uhura had her tricorder in hand, recording the conversation. They had been planetside for almost three hours. They needed to rest, regroup, and report back to Starfleet Command. He nodded to Tharn, and turned aside, reaching for his communicator. “Kirk to _Enterprise.”_

_“Spock here.”_

“We’re preparing to return,” Jim said. “Report on the transporter.” There was a slight pause. 

_“Lt. Kyle reports no further problems with the function of the transporter,”_ Spock said. _“I see no reason to delay your return.”_

“Good,” Jim said. “Stand by to beam up landing party.” He turned back to Tharn. “We will report your answer to the Federation,” he said. “I hope we can continue our discussion in the future.” He thought that sounded suitably diplomatic.

“The council will meditate further,” Tharn said, “but do not be hopeful of any change.”

Jim nodded. He had no reason to believe Tharn, or the rest of the council, would change their minds. He had no intention of testing their assertion that they would rather _die_ than compromise their morals. _A history of total peace._ He couldn’t imagine that. 

He turned to step off the dais, to join Scotty and Uhura so they could beam up. Tharn stood to see him off. “Captain.”

Jim turned back. Tharn met his eyes. “You do have the might to force the crystals from us,” he said. It sounded almost like a challenge. Jim felt another chill under his skin. 

“But we won’t,” he said. _No matter what you say._ “Consider that.” He took out his communicator. “Transporter room. Energise.”

Bright lights swarmed his vision. The last thing Jim saw was Tharn, watching him with cloudy blue eyes. 

The transporter whined in his ears. Jim's senses dissolved into each other. Before his brain could grasp the lack of input, the lights appeared again, the hum of machinery filled his hearing, and the transporter room came into view. A wave of dizziness crashed over him. Jim blinked, swaying slightly on the pad, and for the second time that day, a phantom memory appeared in his head. 

_Kyle at the controls. Spock next to him. The wrong salute—the wrong uniforms—the strange, hostile emblem painted on the walls, the door—_

Like deja vu, the images slid into his mind and out of it just as quickly. Jim blinked, and he was back in the transporter room, _his_ transporter room, with its dark walls and sleek glass panels. Lt. Kyle stood at the controls. Spock stood next to him. Jim felt a rush of relief at the sight. For an instant, he had been afraid that he would step off of the transporter onto the wrong _Enterprise._

“Welcome back, Captain,” Spock said. Jim couldn’t help glancing down at himself, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for. Scotty walked past him. 

“Well, it looks like we’re all in one piece,” he said. He joined Kyle at the control panel. “How are things here?”

“The transporter seems to be back to normal,” Kyle said. “That’s the second time we’ve used it since last night, with no problems.”

“Do either of you feel dizzy?” Jim said. He stepped down from the pad. Uhura followed him. 

“I don’t,” she said. 

“Aye, me neither,” Scotty said. He prodded at the controls. “There could be something lodged in the re-atomization circuits still,” he said, mostly to Kyle. “I want another diagnostic before we have to use her again.”

“How did the Halkans respond to our overtures?” Spock said. Jim took a deep breath and started walking. The dizziness seemed to be fading. Spock and Uhura fell into step with him, and the three of them left the transporter room. 

“Well, they listened to everything we had to say,” Jim said. “And then they very calmly, very politely told us to fuck off.”

Uhura snorted. Spock raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch. “You are paraphrasing,” he said. 

“Yes, Spock. I’m paraphrasing.” Jim sighed. They reached the lift and stepped inside. “They rejected our request. I’ll have to tell Command. We might try to go back and negotiate further, but—honestly, I don’t think it would do any good.” He remembered Tharn, looking up at him with an expression both kind and resolute. _To prevent that, we would die. As a race, if necessary._

“The people of Halka II are known for their commitment to pacifism,” Spock said. “I doubt Starfleet Command expected their request to be granted.”

“But they asked anyway.” 

The lift stopped. The doors slid open on the bridge, and Jim stepped out. He saw Sulu stand up from the captain’s chair. 

“Welcome back, sir,” Sulu said. 

“Thank you, Mr. Sulu.” Jim sat down. Sulu moved back to the helm. Uhura relieved Lt. Alden and sat down at her station with her tricorder. Spock hovered next to the captain’s chair, a few feet from his own station. Jim took a deep breath. Halka II hung in space outside the viewscreen, mottled purple and green.

“Orders, sir?” Sulu said. 

“Maintain orbit,” Jim said. “We’ll stay here until we receive further orders from Starfleet.” 

“Yes, sir,” Sulu said. Jim thought he heard someone at the helm sigh. He couldn’t tell who it was, so he ignored it and reached over to check the chronometer. 

_9:23._ Two and a half hours before the end of beta shift. He reached for his PADD and found Scotty’s report from the night before, sitting at the top of his inbox.

_Right._

He had two reports to write. One on the expected outcome of a routine diplomatic mission, and one on an unexplained phenomenon from the depths of space. 

* * *

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : incident report

_This is confidential until I submit it to Command, but it could still use a second pair of eyes. Let me know what you think?_

_Attachment:_ _2260.35--incidentreport.rtf_

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: incident report

_Do you have access to the relevant sections of the medical log? Command will want to see those._

_Suggested edits:_ _  
_ _\- split up paragraph 2 and paragraph 5 for ease of reading and accessibility._ _  
_ _\- delete: “Despite this, he does not appear to be a significant threat.”_ _  
_ _\- limit yourself to one use of “nevertheless” per report_

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: incident report

_Forgot about the medical log. I’ll get Bones to send a copy. Do I get to pick which “nevertheless” I keep?_

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: incident report

_No. Keep the one in paragraph 14. Delete the others._

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: incident report

_:(_

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Grow up, sir

_Is there any record of the incident from Security’s side of things? Command will want to see that too. Any supplemental information/attachments we have should probably be added in advance, just to be safe. This is only the second recorded instance of this kind of event. Starfleet is going to be all over this._

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : this is insubordination

_That’s for sure. Honestly, I’m kind of glad it’s already happened once. At least we have some kind of precedent, you know?_

_Security doesn’t have a dedicated log entry, but I’ll double check and see if Nguyen or Collins submitted a report. They’re backed up by the medical log either way, so that’s good._

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: this is insubordination

_Have you talked to the ambassador yet?_

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: this is insubordination

_Not yet. I will. I think it’ll help. Starfleet probably will anyway._

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: this is insubordination

_You said this is confidential. Who else knows?_

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: this is insubordination

_Scotty and Keenser, Bones, Spock, Chekov, Nguyen and Collins. And most of the medical staff, probably. They handle information differently and I didn’t mark this confidential until 0400 hours today. I’ll forward the report to the rest of the senior officers when I submit it. And if Command clears it I’ll inform the rest of the crew. We’re going to be stuck with Chekov 2 until at least the next starbase. Might as well let everyone know what’s going on._

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Chekov 2

_Do you think he’s a security threat?_

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: Chekov 2

 _Honestly… I don’t know. He’s not an active threat—right now he’s stuck in the medbay under surveillance. He’s definitely hostile. But how much of that is a fear response and how much is malicious—that I don’t know. I want to talk to him again. And_ **_he_ ** _wants to talk to Sulu._

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: Chekov 2

_Do you think that’s a good idea?_

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: Chekov 2

_I think it might help us get more information. And I’d like to have something to tell Command when they start asking questions._

_Here’s the revised report._

_Attachment:_ _2260.35--incidentreport2.rtf_

**From** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**To** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: Chekov 2

_It looks good. I agree, talking to the ambassador will help. This seems like a similar situation to his. You probably know him the best out of any of us._

_Is the report on Halka II finished?_

**From** : jtkirk@enterprise.isn   
**To** : uhura@enterprise.isn   
**Subject** : Re: Chekov 2

_:(_


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning:  
> \- brief references to sexual assault and domestic violence

The gymnasium on deck fourteen was almost always empty. Tucked underneath the _Enterprise’s_ main turbolift shaft, it was noisy, hot, and less than half the size of the main gym. It didn’t have a treadmill, a running track, or any kind of strength training equipment; most of the floor space was covered by bright red tumbling mats. A single punching bag hung in the corner. It was one of Hikaru’s favorite places on the ship. 

He kept a pair of rubber training foils in the gym’s otherwise empty equipment closet. The things that made the gym useless for anything else made it perfect for fencing practice. It had more than enough space for two people to stage a fight, and the tumbling mats made it safe. At the gym, they could leave rank at the door, and just be Hikaru and Jim: two friends beating the shit out of each other with swords. 

“En garde,” Hikaru said, and lunged. Jim parried his first strike. With their swords locked, Hikaru kicked out, hooked his foot around Jim’s ankle, and swept his legs out from under him. Jim went down with a yelp. Hikaru stepped forward and stabbed his sword into Jim’s chest. “Point!” he said, and then backed off. He stuck out a hand to help his friend up. 

Jim groaned. “Shit,” he said, and grabbed Hikaru’s hand to haul himself up. “I always forget how fast you are.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Hikaru said. Jim hopped onto his feet and rolled his shoulders back, wincing. Hikaru gave him a shit-eating grin. “You almost landed a hit that time.” 

“Shut up.” Jim dropped into a ready stance, holding his sword out in front of him. Hikaru mirrored him. 

What Hikaru called “fencing” when people asked was really the most modern iteration of the sport, a souped-up version of épée crossed with stick fighting, kendo, and whatever martial arts styles the learner chose to incorporate. It had been invented with self-defense as its first goal, and organized competition as a very, very distant second. Even in a controlled environment, it was a famously fast-paced and brutal fighting style. 

“En garde,” Hikaru said. This time he let Jim come to him. Jim lunged, stabbing at him. Hikaru parried, batting his sword away, and tried the same sweeping move he had used before. This time Jim was ready. He dodged back. The move left him open for a split second, but Hikaru wasn’t quick enough to exploit it. Jim parried his strike, twisted out of the lock, and struck with a classic overhand slice. Hikaru dodged, spun sideways, and brought his blade around into Jim’s back. “Point!”

Jim dropped his guard. “Fuck!”

“You know,” Hikaru said. “I didn’t win a single match in my first eighteen months sparring.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s true!” 

“Didn’t you start doing this when you were, like, twelve?”

Hikaru shrugged. Jim settled back on the balls of his feet and lifted his blade. Hikaru frowned. “If you keep holding your sword like that, I’m going to break your wrist.”

“That’s what she—wait, what?”

Hikaru dropped his sword and stepped in to adjust Jim’s grip on his foil. “Keep your wrist straight,” he said. “It’s like throwing a punch. If you take a hit with your hand bent back like that…” 

“Bad things happen,” Jim said. “Got it.”

Hikaru nodded and stepped back. He took up his own sword. “You call it.” 

“En garde,” Jim said. This time he didn’t make the first move, but waited with his sword in a mid-range block, guarding his chest. Hikaru circled him. Jim followed his movement, watching him with intense concentration. Seconds ticked by. The delay made Hikaru tense and impatient. He feinted at Jim’s head. Jim moved to parry and Hikaru changed direction, aiming for his legs. Jim dodged back. 

Hikaru didn’t give him any more time to plan. He feinted again. Jim parried and Hikaru immediately spun into a high kick, forcing Jim's guard open. Jim made a strangled sort of yelp and tried to pull back into a defensive stance, but it was too late. Hikaru pushed off with his other leg and launched himself straight into Jim’s chest. They both went down, and Hikaru had just enough time to push off Jim’s shoulder and stab him in the chest. 

“Point!”

Jim dropped his sword and flopped back onto the floor. “Okay,” he said. “I need a break.” 

He lay on his back, his chest heaving with the exertion. After a minute Hikaru stood and grabbed their water bottles from the corner, and then walked back over to join him on the floor. 

For a minute or two they were silent. Talking trash was part of the fun, in Hikaru’s opinion, but Jim was already getting his ass kicked and he didn’t want to add insult to injury. For all his teasing, it was rare for Jim to lose this many matches in a row.

“Something bothering you?”

Jim took a deep breath, held it a couple of seconds, and breathed out. He glanced sideways at Hikaru. “Is it that obvious?”

Hikaru shrugged. “You’re not bad at this,” he said. Jim snorted. “No, really. You think fast. You’re unpredictable. You have previous experience with hand-to-hand combat that makes it _really_ hard to tell how you’re going to approach any given fight. Which means _I_ have to stay sharp to have a chance at beating you.”

“You beat me a lot,” Jim said.

“Only when you're distracted.”

Jim sighed again. “You read that incident report I sent out?”

“I did,” Hikaru said. It wasn’t the subject he had expected, but it made sense. “It’s… pretty wild.” 

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Hikaru didn’t have a quick answer for that. Another minute or two passed in silence. He wondered if maybe Jim just needed time to think. He had never, since Hikaru had known him, been very good at slowing down, at taking time to think things over. “You want to talk about it?” he said. 

“It’s…” Jim let out another heavy sigh. “I don’t know. It feels like something else is going on.”

“Aside from the stuff in the report?” Hikaru said. “I mean, it’s weird, but we’ve already seen so much weird shit on this mission, you know? At least this seems straightforward. We flew through a magnetic storm and now there’s an alternate universe version of my best friend running around the ship.” He shrugged. “I guess it happens.” 

“I thought I was your best friend.”

“No offense, sir, but you’re not even in the top five.”

Jim snorted. Hikaru smiled, glad to have lightened the mood. “I guess it happens,” Jim said, softer. 

"He try to attack you or something?" Hikaru said. The incident report had mentioned two security officers, Collins and Nguyen, laid out in the infirmary when the mysterious interloper first woke up in the medical bay. That was concerning, but then it wouldn’t be the first time that a guest aboard the _Enterprise_ turned out to be unhinged and dangerous, either. _Is he a guest? Like, legally?_ The incident report had been sort of coy about that. 

“Or something,” Jim said. A slight pause, and then, “He’s afraid of me.”

 _Oh._ Hikaru thought about Pavel, his best friend, and tried to imagine him—another version of him, but still—scared and defensive. _Unfamiliar._ It was a strange thought. “You think he knows you?” Hikaru said. “Or… some other… version of you?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure he does.” 

“So there’s another universe—”

“Timeline.” 

“Timeline, sure. There’s at least one other timeline out there.” Hikaru held his hands level with each other, as if to visualize it. “And this one, that he came from, is different from the _other_ timeline—the first timeline, I guess you could say—which _our_ timeline diverged from. And that’s where Ambassador Spock came from.” 

“Uh-huh.” Jim frowned. “You’ve thought about this a lot more than I have.”

Hikaru shrugged. “It could revolutionize our understanding of physics. If we ever figure out how travel between these different timelines keeps happening.” Spock—their Spock—had mentioned that before, that the mere knowledge of time travel and alternate timelines might itself be the main force driving their timeline to diverge from its antecedent. It was heady stuff, and Hikaru had a degree in astrophysics. “Have you talked to Ambassador Spock about it?”

Jim flung an arm over his face. _“No.”_

“Oh,” Hikaru said, a little surprised at his depth of feeling. “Well, that might help.”

“I know,” Jim said. 

They lapsed into silence for another few seconds. With a start, Hikaru remembered his earlier shift on the bridge, how quiet and withdrawn his best friend had been. “Does Pavel know?”

“Yes,” Jim said. “He knows.” 

“Good,” Hikaru said. Pavel didn’t count as a senior officer yet—Starfleet had to draw the line somewhere, and apparently they weren’t willing to promote an ensign over two perfectly qualified lieutenants serving on the same ship. But he deserved to know. “Has he met…?”

“No,” Jim said. “They’re not—” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. He’s—uh, the other Chekov—he’s pretty freaked out.”

“Makes sense,” Hikaru said. 

“He asked about you, though.”

Hikaru raised his eyebrows. “The other Chekov? _Wow,_ that sounds weird. We can’t call him that.” 

“His name’s Chekov,” Jim said. “Pavel Chekov, that’s what he told Chapel. He’s…” He trailed off. “Well, he doesn’t like me.” 

“I can’t imagine why.”

Jim reached over to smack him. Hikaru dodged, laughing. “He’s _scared,”_ Jim said, more solemn, and Hikaru could hear the worry in his voice. “And—I don’t know.”

That wasn’t a sentence that Jim Kirk said very often. It wasn’t in his nature. He was the captain of the _Enterprise,_ responsible for a state-of-the-art starship and her entire crew. He couldn’t afford to be indecisive. It had to weigh on him, sometimes.

“You want me to talk to him?” Hikaru said, a little softer.

Jim took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“See what he knows?”

“If you can. Mostly I just want him to calm down.” 

“That’s Pavel, alright,” Hikaru said. “Not an ounce of chill.” 

Jim laughed, and started to climb up off the floor. “It’s weird,” he said. “Talking to him. I guess I thought I’d be more used to it, because of Spock, but… it’s different when he’s spending the whole conversation trying to outmaneuver you.”

Hikaru rolled his shoulders back. “To be fair, Spock outmaneuvers you all the time.” 

_“Okay.”_ Jim drew his sword. “En garde!”

He led with a heavy overhand strike. Hikaru parried, only for Jim to hit him with a palm-heel strike to the face. Hikaru staggered back, and Jim stabbed him right in the chest. “Point!”

“Nice,” Hikaru said. He grinned, and his entire face whited out into blistering pain. _“Ah!”_

“Are you okay?” Jim said. 

Hikaru put a hand up to his face. His eyes watered. “I think you broke my nose.”

* * *

Chekov had been in the medical bay for almost ten hours. He knew this because, for some reason, people kept mentioning the time. 

It started with Nurse Chapel. She told him when the first shift change happened, at 0600 hours. At 7:26, she untied the straps holding his arms down, so Chekov could sit up in bed. At 8:05, she gave him a PADD. It was disconnected from the ship’s intranet, so he couldn’t access the main computer, but it had a few scientific books loaded on it, and a blank paper program. It helped pass the time. 

There was another shift change at noon. Chapel left. At 12:30, another nurse brought in a tray of food and left it next to the bed. Chekov didn’t eat it. He wasn’t that stupid. At 12:45, one of the nurses walked him to the bathroom, which was humiliating, but the door locked from the inside and no one tried to slip in with him. After that it was right back to the bed.

“Is this necessary?” Chekov said, as the nurse refastened the straps over his ankles. 

“Yes,” Dr. McCoy said. Chekov startled so violently he almost fell off the bed. He looked sideways to see the doctor standing nearby, arms crossed. “Is there a reason you’re not eating?”

Chekov didn’t know why everyone kept asking questions they already knew the answers to. He was getting tired of it. 

“You will have to try harder than that,” he said, unable to keep the venom out of his voice. McCoy rolled his eyes at the ceiling. 

“For God’s sake,” he said. “If I wanted—” 

The intercom cut him off with a shrill whistle. _“Engineering to Medical,”_ a disembodied voice said. _“We have three casualties headed your way. Four topical burns, one sprain, one eye injury.”_

“Copy that,” McCoy said into his communicator. He walked over to the bed. Chekov froze, but McCoy didn’t touch him. He reached up and drew the curtain around the bed, cutting Chekov off from the rest of the room. 

And that was where Chekov stayed for the next few hours. He heard voices beyond the curtain, footsteps and movement—but never any screams. No yells; no sounds of a struggle. Chekov stared down at the PADD, at the same page of xenoanatomy diagrams he had been reading two hours ago. He listened hard, to murmured voices and the soft hiss of medical equipment, and he waited for an explosion of violence that never came. 

The chronometer on the PADD read 13:22 when they came for him again. It was another nurse who pulled the curtain back—a short brown man that Chekov had never seen before. Chekov looked past him, trying to see what he was in for, but the medical bay—at least, the part that he could see—was empty. He saw McCoy, with his back to the rest of the room, standing near the entrance. 

“The captain is here to see you,” the nurse said. Chekov tensed. 

“Not me,” said another voice—Captain Kirk. Chekov searched for him, but still saw no one. _He’s at the entrance. He’s with McCoy._ “Sulu. I’m just here to clear it.”

 _Sulu?_ Chekov’s pulse rose. Anticipation and fear mingled in his chest. He hadn’t thought—he didn’t know what he had thought. He had mentioned Sulu to the captain because the captain expected it, because he thought it might get a reaction. He hadn’t expected the captain to keep his empty promise. 

“Yes, sir,” the nurse said, and stepped aside. Chekov found the captain— _finally—_ standing next to Dr. McCoy, his hair slightly ruffled and his expression soft. Then he saw Sulu. 

_Wait._

Sulu didn’t have his scar.

Chekov blinked and looked again, but the image didn’t change. The man in front of him didn’t have _any_ scars, only a light bruise under his left eye. Sulu wouldn’t have come anywhere near the sickbay with an injury. He wouldn’t come anywhere near sickbay under any circumstances. He didn’t like Chekov _that_ much. He had a reputation to maintain. And yet—there he was.

Sulu, _no,_ the imposter wearing Sulu’s face sat down next to the bed. “Hey,” he said, and _oh, fuck,_ his voice sounded exactly the same. Chekov’s heart leapt in his chest. His mouth went dry. _It’s not real,_ he thought. His heart thundered in his chest. _It’s not him._

“Pavel, right?” the imposter said. He had Sulu’s voice, but none of his swagger. His voice was even and soft. “Can I call you that?” 

“You—” The words caught in Chekov’s throat. He coughed and tried again, his voice weak. “You’re not him.”

“What?” No anger. No amusement. Just confusion. Chekov shook his head.

“You’re not him.” It sounded stronger the second time. Fear clawed at his stomach, hollowing him out from the inside, but he couldn’t stop. He bared his teeth. “I know Lt. Sulu. I know him better than anyone. I don’t know who you are, but _you are not him.”_

The words tore from his mouth like a knife through fabric. Chekov looked past the imposter, at the captain and the doctor standing in the doorway. They stared at him. “None of you are,” Chekov snarled. His chest heaved. _Stop! Stop now!_ some part of his brain warned, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t sit still and play along while an imitation of Sulu—his commander, his protector, his _best friend_ —sat there mocking him. 

The imposter stared at him. He looked _sad._ Chekov laughed. The noise came out sharp and strangled, and he could have sworn he saw the imposter flinch. 

“Pav—” The imposter looked back over his shoulder, at the others in the doorway. “Can we have a minute?”

“I don’t think—” the doctor started, but the captain put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Bones,” he said, his voice low, and he steered the doctor out through the door. 

“Pavel,” the imposter said. He almost whispered it, his voice was so soft. “I—I won’t call you that, if you don’t want me to. But you have to… I need you to talk to me.” 

He had the same eyes. Dark and angular, threatening every moment to smile or cloud with anger. Chekov kept looking for some evidence of the scar tissue that twisted his face, that tore at the outer corner of his left eye. He had seen it so many times before.

“I want to help you,” the man went on, when Chekov said nothing to him. “I know you’re scared.”

 _Scared._ Sulu was never scared of anything. He laughed at those who were. He would have laughed at Chekov—spitting amateurish threats and insults in a desperate attempt to hide his fear. He could always see through Chekov’s bravado. 

“But you don’t have to be,” the man said. He reached out with one hand. Chekov tensed, and he stopped, his hand held in midair between them. “Am I scaring you?”

It didn’t sound like a joke, when he said it. He sounded _concerned._ Chekov frowned. He met the man’s gaze, and again his eyes fell on where the scar should have been. It didn’t make any sense. Sulu was proud of that scar. He wore it as a badge of honor, a warning to all those who would dare challenge him. He wouldn’t have hidden it for anything. 

“You’re not him.” Chekov swallowed. It had been a challenge before. If it had been the real Sulu in front of him, he would have taken Chekov by the throat and dared him to say it one more time. The imposter didn’t. He let his hand drop, and tilted his head to the side. 

“How do you know?” That wasn’t a joke, either. It didn’t even really sound like a threat. It sounded like a question. 

“The scar,” Chekov whispered. He half-expected Sulu to laugh—to break character at last and say _took you long enough to figure it out, Pasha—_ but of course he didn’t. The man just frowned. 

“Okay,” he said. “Can you tell me more?”

Chekov took a deep breath, in and out, buying time to think. _What did the captain say? This is an alternate universe?_ That was the story. Of course the imposter would act like this. Of course he didn’t know the details of another life, another universe. _Of course._

“Where I came from.” Chekov tried to keep his voice even. “You— _he_ had a scar.” He lifted a finger and traced the jagged line across his own face, from temple to jaw. “From his duel with Lt. McKenna.” 

That got a reaction—something passed across the man’s face, too quickly for Chekov to decipher it. “A duel?” he said. “I’m guessing McKenna didn’t win.”

For an instant he sounded like the other Sulu—the real Sulu—and something fluttered in Chekov’s chest. “No,” he said, and felt himself smiling at the memory. “He didn’t.”

The man smiled. His smile was different, too—more open and humorous than Chekov had ever seen him. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m not the person you know. I’m not… your Sulu.”

 _Your Sulu._ Chekov’s heart beat faster. Before he could stop himself he leaned forward and pressed his hand to the side of Sulu’s face. 

The man went very still. Chekov held his hand in place. He had done this a thousand times before, but this time, the skin under his fingertips was smooth. There was no makeup hiding the scar; no tiny incisions from cosmetic surgery. The man sitting in front of him had never dueled McKenna; never stabbed his opponent in the chest while blood dripped into his eyes. 

“But I am Hikaru Sulu,” the man said. “I was born in San Francisco, California, on Earth. I’ve been a helmsman on the _Enterprise_ for two years, and a member of Starfleet for six.” He didn’t push Chekov away, or grab his wrist to pull him closer. His skin was soft and warm. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Sulu had never said anything like this before. Chekov had never expected him to. But it didn’t sound wrong; it sounded like the man in front of him really meant it. Chekov’s throat ached. 

“Hey,” Sulu said. Chekov met his eyes, and saw him smiling again. “Is it okay if I give you a hug?”

Chekov stared at him. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to _think._ In all the time they had known each other—all the times they had kissed, slept together, held hands on the bridge—Sulu had never, not _once,_ asked for permission to touch him. 

“I—” He stuttered, and worry— _Worry!—_ flickered across Sulu’s face. 

“You don’t have to say yes,” he said. “It’s okay if—”

Chekov surged forward and cut him off with a desperate hug. Sulu made a startled noise. Chekov pressed his face into the crook of Sulu’s neck, holding him close, and Sulu didn’t push him away. After a few seconds, he relaxed, and then wrapped his arms around Chekov in return. 

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.” Chekov felt tears on his face, dripping onto Sulu’s neck. He squeezed his eyes shut. A sob bubbled up in his throat, and he didn’t have the strength to hold it back. 

Sulu cradled him to his chest. Chekov let him, clinging just as hard to Sulu’s shoulder, to the soft fabric of his shirt. His tears soaked into the material. Sulu didn’t seem to care. He was kind, caring, _soft,_ nothing like the man Chekov knew. He couldn’t explain that. He couldn’t argue his way around it.

 _An alternate universe._ Somehow he had stumbled into a place he didn’t understand, a strange starship filled with twisted reflections of the people he knew. He was trapped here.

He thought he could bear that, if only Sulu would hold him like this again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and nine chapters into the hurt/comfort fic... we finally get some comfort. i'm really happy with how this chapter turned out, which is good, because it took way too long to write. if you're enjoying the fic, consider leaving a comment! it really means a lot to hear what people think.


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